


Pet

by anatsuno, shaenie



Category: lotrips
Genre: AU, Conduit Fic, Interspecies, Multi, One of My Favorites, Podfic Welcome, Porn, Tentacles, Threesome, Voyeurism, Worldbuilding, Xenophilia, alien creature, dubcon, original creature, scifi, sex by proxy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-16
Updated: 2009-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-03 01:15:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 34,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anatsuno/pseuds/anatsuno, https://archiveofourown.org/users/shaenie/pseuds/shaenie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elijah Wood is a gifted yet outcast scientist on the verge of a breakthrough; Viggo Mortensen is a mysterious shady dude with a weird alien creature in his pocket (and yes, Viggo's very happy to see Elijah). Tentacle sex somehow ensues!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introductions

**Author's Note:**

> This is is co-authored by anatsuno and Shaenie (who will be added as a co author as soon as I can find her account on the Ao3). The first chapter was originally performed/written/posted (tigged!) [on lj](http://community.livejournal.com/tig_meh/2621.html). The [third chapter/part of the story](http://shaenie.livejournal.com/252688.html) is Shaenie's alone, and as such will probably be posted under her account here.
> 
> I think the weird alien.creature sex counts as dubcon, and all the creepy spying from Viggo is noncon, though I thought a general warning on that front would be misleading (as a friend put it: "in the real world, being spied on would be a violation, but I don't think most people would interpret a fic about voyeurism as noncon, so to label it noncon for that would be confusing"). I tried to tag it as best I could.
> 
> This is not a pretty universe, kids! Fucked up people doing fucked up things and having weird funky interspecies / conduit sex. Proceed at your own risk.

Elijah hates the way the smell of the lab seems to seep into his clothes and stick to his skin after he's been working there all day. When he gets back to his tiny eighth-floor apartment after twelve or fourteen hours, he smells like dank, half-rotted crates and dust and damp concrete and brine. It doesn't matter that he'd cleared out all the crates and sealed all the leaks and dusted until he was streaming-eyed and dripping-nosed months ago, that the warehouse is as clean and sterile and water-tight (for the safety and operating efficiency of the equipment it _has_ to be) as Elijah can make it. It still smells like what it is: an old, moldering wreck of a warehouse. It's too close to the docks, but at least it's not right downtown. There's no way Elijah could keep a lab in the heart of the city. He can't afford the cost of an alarm system.

He strips down less than two feet in the door, and then just stands there in his skin for a minute, taking his glasses off to rub at his face with one hand and the back of his neck with the other. He's tired and his back and neck ache from hunching over instrument panels all day, and it's another damned day with nothing to show for his work.

"Ninety-nine percent perspiration," Elijah mutters and grimaces, toeing the pile of clothes out of the way as he heads for the bathroom. "Where's my fucking inspiration?"

A nice long shower would be just the thing, relax some of the ache of of Elijah's muscles and erase the stink of the docks from his nose.

Unfortunately, he can't have one. The hot water heater serves the entire floor, and there's never more than a minute or two of hot water. Once he'd made himself get up at four a.m. to shower, because who the hell would be using hot water at four in the morning? Someone, apparently. He'd got three and a half minutes that time, and to his mind the extra minute and a half just isn't worth the effort.

Like today's results.

He steps naked into the water and sighs, already fumbling for the bar of soap. It's harsh and smells blindingly antiseptic, but it's cheap and plentiful, so it'll do.

He's tired, so damned tired, and he's starting to wonder if there's any point to this. Since he'd lost all but one of his grants, he can barely scrape up enough money to both continue his experiments _and_ still eat. He's been toying with the idea of moving into the warehouse (he'd tried thinking of it as his lab for weeks after he'd lost the money necessary to keep his facility on the campus of the University, but he just can't manage to do it, it's the _smell_, it doesn't _smell_ like a lab, this stupid goddamned _soap_ smells more like a lab than the fucking warehouse) to cut costs, but the idea of smelling the place all the time, of not being able to come come to his tiny, cluttered apartment at the end of the day makes him feel panicky and slightly ill.

It's not like the place is anything great, but it smells like smog and whatever the people down the hall have been cooking and slightly musty laundry, and Elijah never would have imagined what a relief that was until he'd had to move his lab.

His two minutes are up before he gets the soap out of his hair (more of the bar soap, he's too broke even for fucking Suave, _pathetic_) and ends up rinsing it in water that's cool and headed rapidly toward freezing.

"I hate my life," he mutters as he steps out of the shower and gropes for the towel on the bar. It gives him pause because he's thought it before, of course, but he's never _believed_ it before. Maybe he doesn't even _quite_ believe it now, but...

He's pretty close to believing it.

He hasn't made any real progress in a month, his lab is in a stinking, damp, probably dangerously wired (Elijah hadn't been able to bring himself to look, not with the juice he's pulling when he runs the bridge full out, because it doesn't make a difference, he can't afford anything else, so this has to do, and since that's the case he doesn't want to know what his chances are of starting an electrical fire whenever he flips the switch) wreck of a warehouse, his apartment is so small he can jump from one end to the other, and he's so tired of this shit.

He drags on a pair of sweats and a plain white t-shirt, and slumps into his desk chair (though he doesn't actually have a desk, just a desk_chair_) at the table, eyeing his computer balefully.

He's so tired he isn't even sure he wants to put forth the effort to pull up some porn (bookmarked for his convenience) and jerk off.

God, pathetic.

*

It's late now, dusk tinting the dirty skies with purple and sooty clouds barely outlined in dying sun rays, and it's starting to get cold in the van. Viggo shifts on his seat, uneasy, flips the visor down to extract his parking slip and grimaces at the sticky feel of the old nylon plastic. His sense of touch has heightened in the past weeks, ever since he's gone through the fine taming tuning shit with the Pet, and he's not yet used to it. He can feel several things at once when he's either focusing on purpose or on the contrary, when he's not thinking about it at all, and it's just... weird. Not a word Viggo often uses, that, since for most people he knows he probably would embody weirdness, but that's the proper word nonetheless, yeah.

The Pet moves in the camo-patterned plastic cage, the tips of its limbs sliding against the paper towels Viggo lined it with, and once again Viggo's fingers twitch despite himself, disturbed at the soft spongy paper feel mixed in with the index-card robustness of the parking slip, the glossy magnetic strip.

Maybe he should give it a name, but the thing—Pet—doesn't really require it, answering as it does to unvoiced commands when the tuning is complete—and it is, finally. Viggo turns the key in the ignition and fiddles with the heating dials, performs his usual checking procedure as he turns the headlights on mechanically. Transmitter, datachip, extra battery, sodium and magnesium pills, the disks he needs to download into Elijah's systems, everything tightly packed in his shoulder bag, okay. Good. Oh, peppermint gum, nice. Might be welcome later.

He exits the parking slowly, stopping once to tightly close the opaque separation window between the cabin and the back area (the parking has human employees to collect the fee, and Viggo has no intention to let anyone glimpse the jumble of hi-tech equipment and ragged 'hippie' belongings laid out in the van, thus endangering the image of dumbass cheap-o he tries hard to project around here) and blocking out the churning of his upset stomach. Viggo despises all means of ground transportation, on rails or on wheels; it's one of the many ironies of his life that what is closest to pass as his home is a four wheeled vehicle.

*

Elijah gets his computer booted up before he realizes he's laid his glasses down somewhere. "Fucksticks," he sighs, and gets up to look for them (because he won't even be able to see porn without them), promptly tripping over his pile of discarded clothing and taking an inelegant nosedive onto the living room floor. He lies there for several seconds, trying to tell himself he should be grateful that he didn't fall on anything, since there isn't a lot of empty floor in the apartment to fall on. Then he sighs and drags himself to his feet.

He spots his glasses on his way up, an indistinct but slightly reflective blur on the arm of the couch, and fumbles them onto his face.

He seriously considers just going to bed for about ten seconds, but... There's just so much to do, still. He stands there, undecided, for nearly a minute before he takes the six steps necessary to get him to the cupboard over the sink, and reaches for a small brown bottle.

_Adderall_, the label says, or Amphetamine-dextroamphetamine, which is just a complicated way of saying uppers, central nervous system stimulant. Dangerous and oft-abused, mostly used to treat such charming conditions as ADHD and narcolepsy.

In this case, used the good old fashioned way, like company executives in the 60's: to stave off sleep in order to get things done.

He dry swallows two tablets, sixty milligrams, closing his eyes as the pills scrape painfully down the inside of his throat.

_Amphetamine-dextroamphetamine_. He's always thought it sounds a lot more complicated than it actually is. It releases dopamine and norepinephrine into the central nervous systems and blocks the reabsorbtion of serotonin, the feel-good chemical, increasing energy and attention for several hours as well as providing a warm, pleasant sort of feeling.

It's addictive, of course. Big time.

Elijah understands the danger, and generally speaking he doesn't give in to the urge to dose himself chemically; at least not with anything stronger than caffeine and nicotine.

But he's feeling shitty and he's too tired to even jerk off, and he thinks if he just felt a little better, more alert and less like today had been a complete waste of time and energy, then maybe he could get something productive done, something that would reawaken the rush of success, the kind that had nothing to do with drugs.

He makes his way to the fridge and snags a Dr. Pepper —he can't afford shampoo, but he would _die_ without Dr. Pepper —from the door.

_Ten minutes_, he thinks, and smiles slightly. Ten minutes tops and he'll be feeling it. There's a pile of notes and disks sitting next to the computer, and a whiteboard with a long, complicated, _beautiful_ string of numbers and symbols pegged to the wall, and in ten minutes he'll feel better, he'll be able to look at it and maybe find the transposed variants or the forgotten decimal, and he _knows_ that he's close.

He's been close, so close for _months_ now, he just needs to keep going, keep trying.

He sits his ass down in front of the computer again, idly opening one of his bookmarked sites.

"Just until it kicks in," he mutters, right hand curling around the mouse, lips quirking slightly upward.

_"It's a thing," he'd told his sophomore roommate once, rolling one shoulder in a shrug. He —his name had been Nick —had laughed for three or four minutes before he'd become distracted as Elijah scrolled through several drawings._

"Holy shit," Nic muttered, peering at the screen, eyes wide and cheeks flushed, and Elijah'd had to look away to conceal his smile. "What the fuck is that thing **doing** to her?"

"It's fucking her," Elijah had drawled, amused and knowing because he'd had this kind of reaction from people before. First they laugh and possibly mock, and then they looked —idle curiosity, maybe, but Elijah really doubted it —and then they looked some more, because no matter how disturbing it was, it was **hot**.

"With it's..." Nick said, and then stalled out, but he'd edged closer to Elijah, and Elijah was sure he was about five seconds from dragging up a chair.

"Tentacles," Elijah'd supplied helpfully, and Nick had just murmured distracted agreement.

*

The traffic is shit, bumper to bumper on first one then the second interchange, but at least the air is now blasting warm in the cabin, and the Pet must be asleep since Viggo can't feel anything coming from his quarter.

Once he's back on surface streets, between the freeway and the docks, Viggo takes the time to get some food from a Mexican drive-through. He's had a long day, huddled in front of his screens to monitor the transfer of the blueprints he'll need, keeping an eye on some money swapping from his latest clients into his bank account.

It's taken months for all the leads to come in and all the ends to tie up, not to mention the time it took for those crazy flying nuns managing the kennel to come around and sell him the Pet, and Viggo should have foreseen how taxing it would be, this day, the moment things come together, but he didn't. Still dizzy from the last jump, from teaching himself how to deal with the beast, from merely fucking feeding it, dammit. From the pull in his belly towards the square-jawed and bespectacled, common sense impaired, socially akward physicist despairing in his cheap ass lab.

The double burrito combo is more than welcome, spicy, comforting even though the melted cheese is obviously more fermented plastic than anything else. The area is quiet and dark, few cars, most street lamps burnt out, and Viggo drives slowly, one hand on the wheel, chewing and thinking.

He lets the Pet out of the cage once he's done, cramming the polystyrene packaging in the paper bag reserved for trash under the glove box and steeling himself as he opens the latch. It's sleeping but it wakes up as soon as Viggo touches it, and it unfurls with a soft noise and undulates up his arm slowly, some of its—tails, bits, whatever, wound around Viggo's fingers and forming rings over his knuckles. It's small-ish, still, won't grow til it can form another bond to a second human, or at least til it starts getting fed more than one brand of sweat. It looks gentle like this, shining in the gloom, its skin reflecting the dashboard's light.

The weight of it settled on his wrist reassures Viggo, centers him. He circles the building twice, looking for a free spot and adjusting again to the creature's senses meshing with his own, impatience rising up. He hasn't checked in on Elijah since last night (except if you count the flash check around 3 pm he couldn't help but make, but it wasn't good or quiet or anything, just—practical, therefore Viggo doesn't count it), and he's about to _meet_ him, and he really needs a moment to regroup and peer through his window, just watch Elijah be, move, hear him swear profusely; whatever it is he's doing now, Viggo yearns to witness it, yearns for the comfort of his peeping corner. He counts on it to settle his nerves.

*

The mellow curl of the drug in Elijah's system makes it easy to ignore his own ten minute marker. What's it going to hurt, anyway. The data isn't going anywhere, it's too late to go back to the lab tonight anyway, and the white board with its numbers and symbols will still be sitting on his table in the morning.

Elijah doesn't surf aimlessly anymore.

He doesn't use any of the search engines (God forbid, the fucking _popups_) and he doesn't hit the pay sites (which he couldn't afford anyway). He has a dozen or so free sites with reliable content and not _too_ many popups bookmarked, and sometimes those link other sites and he gets lucky with new images.

As far as pornography goes, he is both particular and not.

What he looks for is a very specific type of image, almost always drawings, never actual people (the live action images are usually trash, though he's come across a handful of real-person clips and photos that have been, God, so good, but they're rare, like finding diamonds in your toilet), but as far as straight or gay, explicit or not, it doesn't matter.

As longs as it's good, as long as he can suspend disbelief _just enough_, it'll do.

Hentai, manga, anime, yaoi: it's all good as long as it's a quality image, as long as Elijah can _believe_, if only for a few seconds.

It's not the easiest thing in the world to believe, either.

Elijah occasionally wishes he'd hit upon an easier kink, bondage, maybe, or golden showers. Hell, anyone would piss on you, after all.

He clicks on a thumbnail, and his palms are already sweaty, his dick already firm and uncomfortable, stuffed into his sweats. The seething buzz of the perverse is already making him twitchy, and he grins and licks at his lips, which are suddenly dry.

It's a good one, too; one he's seen before, but not for a while, and his eyes flicker greedily over the computer screen and his right hand steals down between his thighs to squeeze his dick through the worn fabric of his sweatpants.

He likes these best of all (and he utters a brief, snorting chuckle, because he likes them _all_ best), the ones where the girl (in this case, though boy would be fine, too) looks shocked and wide-eyed, but her pussy is dripping and her nipples are tight little peaks, and she clearly likes it whether she wants to admit it or not. Non-violent (more or less) rape fantasies, yeah, he knows the psychology, knows it's as common as brown hair or green eyes, but still. He likes it when they like it (okay, he likes it when they don't, too, when their huge eyes are full of tears and they look agonized and horrified), likes the bright red cheeks and wet lips. And the creature is good, too, vaguely humanoid but armless, pale purple and it slick with something (alien slime or something, Elijah doesn't give a fuck). It has tentacles where it's arms should be and sprouting from its groin, it's tongue is long and glistening against the anime girl's cheek.

Elijah clicks and there's another frame (so few of them are strips like this, same monster, same girl, a progression), and the girls is spread wide, tentacles wound around her arms and legs and a couple of them have inched up her thighs, nudging at the lips of her pussy, and its tongue has slithered into her mouth, prying her jaws wide, and there are droplets of... whatever, spit or some kind of slime, fleck her chin several of the sinuous appendages preparing to push into her.

Elijah groans softly and presses the heel of his hand hard against his erection, but doesn't take it out. Not yet. He knows himself, and as soon as his dick is out of his pants it'll be all over. He's in no hurry, and it's good to push with his hand and press up with his hips, good to make himself wait.

*

Viggo heaves a sigh of relief as the picture in his mind resolves into clarity - he's been doing this a long time but he's nervous enough tonight, and the transmitter doesn't always get a perfect reception in urban areas. His pulse speeds up immediately as he takes in the familiar posture of Elijah, slouched in his chair and pressing his hand against his crotch.

He watches it unfold, unsurprising, lets himself get lulled as Elijah scrolls through drawings, goes forward and back between them, the heel of his hand increasing its rhythm. There's something Viggo finds incredibly erotic in it, not only the fact he's watching something, after all, forbidden (he's almost forgotten that by now, after months of dropping in uninvited to spy on the boy, and the power of it has dwindled a bit) but the way Elijah does it, teasing himself almost, waiting until the second to last moment to touch himself unimpeded.

Viggo's breath comes shorter and shorter, something weighing on his chest, and he suddenly realizes that the Pet has gained a size and is nested on his sternum, swishing tails around his neck and shoulders and wrapped along his ribs over the shirt. It must have been awoken by Viggo's hammering heartbeat or a change of taste in the sweat on his skin. It's still swaying softly like it was earlier on Viggo's wrist when its body was the size of a kitten, but the effect is very different now.

Closing his eyes again, Viggo wonders if Pet can feel Elijah through the wormhole as well, and if not, if it will one day have leeched enough of Viggo's secretions to be transformed by them and gain the same abilities. But the question is too complex to examine just now when Elijah's finally taking his dick in hand, sweats pushed hastily down, barely stroking. Viggo pants, only now comprehending what the Pet can do as he feels not only the hardness of his cock pushing in his palm under the denim of his jeans but also the contours of his own pectorals that Pet is fondling slowly, and the warm fuzzy rasp of his body hair rubbed at his waist by a stray tentacle insinuated under shirt and waistband.

It's fucking breathtaking, dizzying, and Viggo rushes towards orgasm with the same ease than Elijah, who's twisting his wrist cleverly for the three honest strokes it always takes him to finish off. It's the first time he ever managed that, his older body demanding more than a few instants of hard pumping habitually—fuck, he came in his _jeans_.

The Pet emits a little squeal-y sound and moves upwards on Viggo's chest, tails slithering over his face shortly. Viggo tries to focus, remember the next steps of his plan... Fails for a while. It's mind-numbing to contemplate more possibilities between them and though he's done it countless times before, has planned and plotted to make it happen—this is the first time Viggo's been brushing the reality of it, and he's in shock.

It helps him come down to just sit there and keep watching Elijah. Elijah wiping himself up quickly with a tissue, Elijah mock-playing basketball as he lobs the bundled up tissue into the waste basket, Elijah drinking from his Dr. Pepper with a blissed out face that makes him look about four years younger.

Viggo moves to retrieve the cage from the passenger seat in the cabin and unhooks the Pet from himself to put it back in, which proves a little tricky with the added bulk on the replete, sated creature. He manages, and locks the cabin behind him once he's charged with the things that count - backpack, precious shoulder bag, wallet and the cage. Back in the living quarters of the van he changes into clean trousers, extracts the offering he's prepared to win Elijah over with and turns all the monitors off.

He does all this with the window onto Elijah open, because it's a way to distract himself from the jitters and the doubt, a way to keep his goal well in view, as it were. Watching Elijah go about his solitary business has been Viggo's soothing drug of choice for a long time. There's nothing for it, though, he's out of ways to stall, it's time to go.

The elevator in the dirty building is old enough to be slow; Viggo fists his hands around the handles of his load and closes his eyes, spies Elijah scratching his ass and tilting his head in front of his wide open fridge. He looks both sad and jumpy. And beautiful; he's always beautiful to Viggo.

*

Elijah peers into the fridge for a while, debating the wisdom of another Dr. Pepper. The caffeine, on top of the amphetamine, would guarantee a big dose of not sleeping in Elijah's near future, but he's thirst and the only other option is beer, which is a no no while medicated. Or water, but Elijah doesn't really trust the water from the tap. Sometimes it's a funny color.

Elijah is wide awake, and is going to be for the foreseeable future, his mind running along at a hasty clip, and suddenly his mind veers sharply right and he's thinking of the whiteboard, numbers and symbols in an oh-so-meticulous arrangement (one that he hasn't got right, not quite, not _yet_) in stark black and white (and green when Elijah had run out of black dry-erase marker), and he turns away from the refrigerator, barely aware of the door slowly pulling itself shut. He grabs his cigarettes from the counter as he walks by, mentally calculating how long four (the number in the pack) will last him, since he just doesn't have any money for more.

In three more days he can give plasma again, an easy sixty bucks, but four cigarettes into three days equals... well, the bottom line of that equation just isn't pretty.

Once, not quite six months ago now, Elijah had been walking home from the University (he'd spent his bus pass money on Dr. Pepper), just ambling slowly down Carlso Street with one foot on the curb and one foot on the street, thinking about imbalance and its effect on matter and anti-matter (he'd added _nine_ steps to the formulae that night, he remembers) and some guy had offered him fifty bucks if Elijah would let him suck Elijah's dick.

He'd turned it down. Politely. And then hurried the rest of the way home.

He'd still been getting three grants then, though, and while things had been tight, they hadn't been desperate.

He's pretty sure he wouldn't turn it down, if it were to happen again.

"And hey," he says out loud without meaning to. "Blowjob!" He grins as his hands close around the whiteboard, and props it up against the computer monitor so he can stare at it from his chair.

He's about to sink down into it, having forgot entirely about getting a drink, when someone knocks on the door.

He pauses, half-sitting, thinking that it must have come from down the hall. No one knocks on Elijah's door. Ever.

He's about to lower himself the rest of the wait down when the knock comes again. This time, Elijah's fairly certain that it _is_ someone at his door. He straightens up and looks at the door for a few seconds. Then, because he really can't think of anything else to do, he walks over and opens it.

His first thought is that a homeless guy somehow managed to get into the building, even though the entry door is keyed and supposedly secure. The guy has a knapsack over one shoulder, a plastic shopping bag in one hand, and what looks to Elijah like a pet caddy in the other.

But no, he reconsiders a moment later, because the guy standing in the hall is clean and neat, even with what looks like a weeks worth of beard on his cheeks. His hair is a darkish blonde, dirty blonde, except it's too shiny to be dirty, and longish. He's dressed in jeans and a neat blue shirt, and he looks... nervous.

Elijah frowns.

"Um..." he says uncertainly.

"Hi," the guy says, "good evening." He sets the camouflage thing —Elijah's mind insists on thinking of it as a pet carrier, even though he's pretty sure that doesn't make any sense —on the ground and offers Elijah his hand.

Elijah looks at the guy's outstretched hand, and the only thing he can think is that he can't shake hands with this guy as he had just beat off, and he hasn't washed yet. "Um," Elijah says again. "I think you have the wrong apartment. Who are you looking for?"

*

"You," Viggo says, and he remembers to add hesitation there, "at least I think. Mr Wood?"

Elijah nods, but doesn't take Viggo's hand, so Viggo bends his knees to lift the Pet's cage again and steels himself. "I can help you," he says, and strides decisively into the apartment, past Elijah. "In your research."

He turns around to perform a quick survey, immediately spots the whiteboard propped up where the porn was a minute ago; Elijah must've decided to get some more work in his day after Viggo closed the window and turned the transmitter back off. Some more nigh-useless work.

He puts the cage down again, and the supermarket bag, and passes the strap of his shoulder bag over his head to dump it on the floor, keeping the backpack on for now. Elijah closes the door.

*

"You, uh..." Elijah says stupidly, thinking, _what, research, what?_. He turns and closes the door pretty much out of habit, and then it occurs to him to wonder if he's just cut off his only avenue of escape.

He doesn't know this guy, he could be a homicidal maniac!

"Um," Elijah says agin, and the guy turns to look at him, and Elijah's suspects he'd been imagining it earlier, when he had thought the guy looked nervous. Now he looks calm and certain, and something else, something weird about his eyes.

Elijah's mind is a jumble in spite of the normally clarifying effects of the Adderall. On top of that, he's starting to feel a little itchy nervousness, a sometime-side effect that Elijah is familiar with, but doesn't usually suffer. He takes his glassed off to rub at his face for a second, half-convinced that when he puts them back on, the blurry shape of the guy will be gone.

He's hallucinating, maybe? It's technically possible, considering the nature of the drug and Elijah's overall state of perpetual exhaustion lately.

When he slides his glasses back on his nose, though, the guys is still standing there. Looking at Elijah. No, _staring_ at Elijah.

Something moves in the pet carrier, a soft, shifting sound, and Elijah fights the urge to take a step back.

"Look," he says, going for firm, but he'll be happy enough if he even comes across as calm. "I don't know you, and I don't know what you think you know about..." he hesitates on the cusp of saying _the bridge_ and substitutes, "my research, but I think it's better if you come back in the morning, Mr....?"

He trails off when he realizes he doesn't know the guys name, thinking, _Yeah, when I'm not half-stoned would be good._

*

"Mortensen, Viggo Mortensen." Viggo runs his hand through his hair.

"Look, I realize this is odd, but I really came here to help you out. I know you have funding problems right now, and--" he frowns, annoyed at himself for not having prepared this bit a little better. It's not like the guy knows anything about him, and he can't launch into a whole confession about how exactly he himself knows everything there is to know, that would freak Elijah right out.

It's hard to get out of the stalker's mindset and to play it cool. Viggo's thrown off enough that he has a pang of yearning for his comfortable window—there's a lot less struggle in watching. The apartment, the air, the temperature, Elijah's faintly agressive and panicked countenance, everything feels a bit _too_ real, less nice than what he's used to experiencing from his normal vantage point.

Viggo opens the plastic bag and fishes the 12-pack of Dr. Pepper out, takes a step closer to offer it up to Elijah.

"Here, take this. It's for you—I figured we'd both need some caffeine to go through this. There's a lot I need to tell you, really, and I'm finding it hard to, um, begin."

The gesture has to show at least a certain amount of good will; and hopefully Elijah won't wonder how Viggo knew what beverage to take along.

*

Elijah takes the twelve-pack that Mortensen, Viggo Mortensen thrusts at him, open-mouthed and uncertain. "What are you...?" Elijah begins, and then Viggo is reaching back into the bag and pulling out a pack of Marlboros.

_This guy knows all my Achilles' Heels_, Elijah thinks bemusedly, but his hand is already reaching for the pack of smokes. The edges of his mind feel dull. He's pretty sure he isn't quite grasping things. He can't be. This kind of thing doesn't happen to him.

"How do you know--" Elijah begins, and then something moves in the pet caddy again, and they both look down at it. Elijah frowns and absently shoves the twelve-pack onto the table, nudging aside a pile of files to make room. He puts the cigarettes on top of it and turns back toward the carrier, bending to look inside.

"How do I know what?" Mortensen says a little sharply, and Elijah's attention swerves away from the carrier and back toward the man.

"Um," Elijah says, trying to recall what he'd been thinking about. There's kind of a smell coming from either the man or whatever's in the carrier. It's spicy and interesting. Elijah can't quite put his finger on it. "Um. Funding. How do you know I'm having funding problems?" he manages to get out, mentally cursing the Adderall. His skin is starting to itch in earnest now.

*

"I'm afraid I can't tell you that just now," Viggo answers briskly, "too complicated. All in good time." He pulls the cardboard open to get at the cans and cracks one for himself; Elijah looks at him with one of his eyebrows doing what seems to be an involuntary nervous wiggle.

Viggo takes a long swallow of soda and tries to project certainty. "Do you want money or not?"

"You should sit down," he adds, crouching next to the cage, which brings his head suddenly very close to Elijah's (and he'd not calculated that, fuck, up close Elijah smells of industrial soap and come), and he opens the latch to draw back the top part of the container and expose the Pet, wanting to deluge Elijah with more surprise, to disorient and fascinate and shut him up so there's time to think.

He desperately needs time to think. To get used to. Things.

"We all need to get comfortable. You'll probably ask enough question to keep us busy for a few hours."

*

Elijah thinks it's more than slightly ironic that less than five minutes ago he'd been thinking he wouldn't turn down a blowjob for money.

Now there's a stranger in his living room offering him money, bribing him with good cigarettes and better carbonated beverages, and crouching practically at Elijah's feet, but all of that seems distant and unimportant because there's a monster in a pet carrier in Elijah's living room.

_Huh_, Elijah thinks, quickly followed by, _it's too small_, and his face prickles hotly with blood, because for fuck's sake, what kind of perverted, twisted fuck is he anyway.

The thing in the pet carrier moves, all sinuous, writhing curves, its... appendages (_tentacles_) making a kind of _whisk-shh-whisk_ sound on the paper towels lining the bottom of the carrier.

_Is it house trained?_ Elijah wonders, and has to bite his lip to hold back the kind of hysterical, tittering giggle that had got him beat up a few times in high school. He rubs fiercely at both arms, his itchy skin abruptly too much to take.

He can see Mortensen from the corner of his eye, watching Elijah. He hasn't moved, is still crouched beside the carrier and within arm's reach of Elijah, and he's holding a Dr. Pepper in one hand still.

The... creature uncoils itself (it looks a little like a knot of snakes or something, like an Indiana Jones movie where there are twenty of them of all sizes and species in a big, deadly pile) in what comes across to Elijah as a leisurely fashion, until it's sort of propped up on two of the thicker appendages. The rest are in motion, not whipping around crazily like in some of the video's Elijah's watched, but kind of quivering, like it's responding to a breeze that Elijah can't feel. It doesn't have a body, exactly —at least not one that Elijah can see right now, but the way it's moving makes it hard to tell. He doesn't see eyes or a mouth. Just... tentacles, maybe twenty or more, in varying sizes and colors —earth tone colors, sort of bronze-ish along the bigger ones, the smaller ones paler, the color of sand.

Elijah swallows hard, mouth and throat suddenly completely devoid of moisture. He hears and odd little click from his throat.

"What is that?" he whispers, low and kind of hoarse, and several of the quivering tentacles sort of sway in Elijah's direction.

Mortensen doesn't say anything for what feels like about six years, but Elijah can't drag his eyes away from the creature in his living room to look at the man long enough to try and figure out why.

It shifts again, the motion rippling along the bigger, supporting limbs, and raises up, sliding several smaller ones along the edge of the carrier. They slip along the plastic a few inches before encountering Mortensen's knee, pause there, and then it moves _very fucking fast_.

Elijah hears himself gasp as it just seems to boil up and out of the carrier, all frenetic motion and rippling, smooth... flesh? And then it settles on Mortensens's leg, limbs coiled around the curve of knee and thigh.

Elijah lets out his breath in a slow, unsteady sigh.

"Sit down," Mortensen invites, like it's his fucking house, but his tone is calm, solid, gentle.

Elijah sinks down to the floor, folding his knees up under his chin. He doesn't have the mental fortitude to do otherwise. His skin is prickling and tingling more than itching now, and his hard on is poking him in the belly.

*

If there was ever any doubt in Viggo's mind that the Pet was a brilliant idea (and there was, never before but in the past few minutes, ever since he'd plunged into all of that _realness_ and got sort of confused by it), Elijah's reaction to it vaporized that completely. He looks strangely young hunched over his knees like this, a defensive posture, but there was absolutely nothing childlike about the movement of his Adam's apple a second ago, or in the gasp that teared out of him as Pet rose out of the cage.

Viggo smiles and lowers to the ground next to him, tired of crouching, knowing it'll prompt Pet to move and reposition itself.

Elijah stares and stares, obviously entranced as Pet moves up sinuously. His mouth is parted and shiny (he has started to lick his lips at regular intervals, every two seconds or so, it's one of the most erotic unconscious little tics ever); Viggo almost has to suppress delighted chuckles at the view.

"I haven't named It yet," he says softly, stroking the, um, back maybe—the sort of central bundle-y part of the Pet's body that Viggo thinks of as its back, anyway.

Elijah's sudden intake of breath is audible. They're really close now, close enough that if Viggo wanted he could think at the Pet a command to slither from his own knee to Elijah's calf, and Pet wouldn't need more than two or three big ripples of its largest appendage to go there.

"Is it okay if we both crash here for the night" Viggo asks, "me and It?" sliding a finger along one of the more deeply colored tails, one that looks (and is) as soft as the inside of someone's mouth.

Pet coils itself more tightly around Viggo's thigh and sends two thin tails curling around his wrist slowly, and Viggo shivers, almost gasping in turn as the sensations relayed from Pet (of his own skin, the little hair raised on the back of his wrist, the knobbly shape of his own bone) twine in his nervous system with his own. Fuck, _yeah_, and to think soon he'll be feeling _Elijah_ like this—

"Yeah," Elijah whispers dreamily, "whatever." He obviously didn't listen to the words, responding only to the interrogative tone of voice.

It's so heady, so good, that immediate branding assurance that Viggo can ask anything of Elijah and he'll get it, that Elijah's won over, vulnerable, eager even; Viggo can't help but smile to himself.

"Might take a few days for everything to get sorted out," he adds pensively, moving his fingers over various parts of Pet with feigned nonchalance, watching the blush of blood rise into Elijah's cheeks and creep over the bridge of his nose under the thick frame of his dorky glasses (there's really not many things in life better than watching Elijah, and watching him at the height of sensual excitation is unspeakably _nice_). "Hm, you should probably get to know one another."

Elijah nods again, eyes never leaving Pet.

"Do you want to touch It?"

*

"Is it, um, nice?" Elijah hears himself ask as if from a great distance, but his hand is already moving, a tentative sort of reaching gesture, like one would offer a hand to an unfamiliar dog.

He has time to think that this, the whole thing, is insane. That he's dreaming, asleep in his desk chair, the victim of too much porn, or barring that (unlikely, considering the stimulants) he's hallucinating the man and the creature and the spicy, good smell that seems even stronger now.

Whatever. Doesn't matter. It's not real.

Can't be.

But he's reaching anyway, and Mortensen —what did he say his first name was again? —chuckles, a low, deep roll of mellow sounds. "Yeah," he says. "It's nice."

"I j-just," Elijah stammers, and licks his lips. "I thought h-he might bite or something."

Mortensen laughs again, full-throated this time. "Pet doesn't bite," he assures Elijah. "I don't think it can. It doesn't," —hesitation, which Elijah hears but can't be bothered to think about just now —"it doesn't eat that way."

"Pet," Elijah repeats dumbly. Mortensen says something Elijah doesn't catch then because the creature, it, _Pet_ lifts itself up in a ripple of movement, and all of its tentacles are shivering in Elijah's direction. His hand is close enough that it could reach, but Elijah can't bring himself to close the distance, initiate touch himself. What if he startles it, what if it runs away?

It seems too great a risk. _Come on,_ he thinks stupidly, uselessly, but he can't help it. "Pet," slides out from between his lips again, almost a whisper, and then it is moving, that same burst of quick and sinuous energy, scuttering across Elijah's open hand —Elijah gets the confused impression of warmth and smooth flesh and tickling, feather-like brush of the Pet's locomotion —and up to his forearm where it settles as quickly as it had erupted into motion.

Elijah feels the blood rush to his face and neck and dick as it winds sleek limbs around his naked forearm; he can clearly feel the ripple of muscle under the skin of the creature, the strength of it as it settles, several of its tentacles anchored around Elijah's arm.

"Oh," Elijah says, and his hand clenches into a fist and then spasms open helplessly. He glances up at Mortensen, he's not sure why, wanting to make sure it's okay or something, but Mortensen seems hardly aware of Elijah at all. He's smiling slightly, but his eyes are closed and his head is tipped slightly back.

Pet shifts on Elijah's arm, dragging Elijah's eyes downward helplessly, and Elijah watches one of the smallest tentacles —so pale it's almost yellow, and faintly speckled, Elijah thinks —slither it's way up to the crook of Elijah's elbow and trace the visible vein there for a few seconds. "Hungh," Elijah breathes, and it retreats, winding around Elijah's arm like the others.

"Pet likes you," Mortensen rumbles, but Elijah doesn't look at him.

Instead, he touches a tentative fingertip to one of the tentacles wound around his arm. Pet shifts, and one of the others, still raised and quivering in Elijah's direction, snakes around Elijah's finger with a little ripple of _constriction_.

"Oh," Elijah croaks dumbly, and he feels absolutely stupid with shock and disbelief. Two of the smaller tentacles stroke lightly along the back of his hand. "Wow," he adds.

Mortensen is speaking again, and Elijah makes a vaguely affirmative noise, doesn't even give a shit what he's agreeing to. He is sure the spicy-good scent in the air is coming from this creature, and he can't quite stop himself from tipping his face down and inhaling deeply, eyes fluttering closed in appreciation. Yeah, it's definitely Pet, it smells like... he doesn't know, not quite, but like something good, and he licks his lips again.

Then his eyes snap open as something soft brushes lightly across his lower lip —not something, but _it_, the thing, the _Pet_, nothing else it could be, of course, _touching his mouth_ —and blood rushes again to his face and his groin, but by the time he can focus, it's stopped.

He looks at Mortensen, mute with shock and unsure of what he would say anyway, but in desperate need of some kind of reassurance or information, or _something_.

Mortensen is just looking at him, though, staring, pale eyes practically drilling holes in Elijah's face, and Elijah wonder's blearily if he's angry, and if he'll leave and maybe take the Pet with him, and his belly clenches in tight, greedy possessiveness and he bends his arm and pulls it close to his chest.

*

"Yeah, wow," Viggo tells him, shaken out of his tactile transe by the sudden movement. That sums it up nicely.

Elijah's attention doesn't stay on Viggo for very long; his free hand moves over Pet for a shy sort of caress, fingers bent in a cup as if to measure it, desire and curiosity and awe clearly written on his face.

The animal must perceive something it wants, because it moves of its own volition (Viggo's sure he didn't send any kind of mental tug to it to that effect) to spread with swishy noises and wrap Elijah's palm into several tentacles, and then as Viggo and the boy both sigh in unison Pet _pulls_ at the hand, a regular traction (that Viggo can feel as a twinge of strength, a definite increase of pressure in the crooks of his knees and into his armpits, as if his own body was bent and snarled around Elijah's hand and curling tighter) until the hand is positioned palm up close to Elijah's opposite elbow where Pet sits for now... and Pet quietly, smoothly transfer its body into the ready receptacle of Elijah's palm.

Viggo's heart jumps against his ribs, because Elijah's hand is damp with perspiration and _Oh fuck of course_ it's tasty to the Pet—_come, traces of come on his skin from before_, Viggo thinks in a daze—and it moves its underbelly in tiny waves against it, membrane thinner and receptive, it moves and absorbs what it can of Elijah's body fluids microscopic remains with a gluttonous enthusiasm that Viggo's only experienced on himself before, but recognizes instantly.

The taste of it floods his tongue despite the fact that his tongue is safely in his mouth; it is, in fact, drying slowly from too much exposure to air, as Viggo's lips are staying dumbly parted from incredulity and shock. Elijah's taste is bitterness and peppery tang, fading in and out of the lightly musky flavor of his sweat as Pet gently takes it all away from his skin, amazing, surreal. Viggo has to fight to stop his eyes rolling back in his head.

Elijah's shoulders and biceps are covered in goosebumps but he doesn't seem to notice at all, he's not shivering, only content to watch and feel Pet feed on him (though Viggo doubts Elijah's understood yet that this is what is happening). His breaths are deep and long, powerful inhalations; his knees have spread and lowered, his thighs parted and giving Viggo a perfect view of the bulge in his sweats—None of that matters to Elijah, apparently, anymore, to the point where Viggo wonders (he's closed his hands in fists to avoid touching himself, to avoid jumping in or laying back and letting himself get drunk on it, because there will be time for it later, there will, Viggo _wants_ there to be and will do anything to make it happen) if Elijah would even react to his touch at all, or his voice, or what.

"Elijah," Viggo tries then, moving away from him just a little, a few inches on the carpet; it's the first time he pronounces the first name aloud when there is someone else than him to hear it and Viggo's heart clenches a little at that, at how the word feels intimate and beautiful and fragile just now. "Elijah," again, since Elijah hasn't responded in any kind of way, too busy that he is (fuck me, Viggo thinks, you're fucking shitting me, how does he _do_ that? and he congratulates himself once more for having brought these two creatures together, because though Fate was too stupid to see it it doesn't mean they don't absolutely _belong_ together, so madly right, so painfully good) undulating under Pet's selfish attention, "I'm gonna leave you with It a second, okay? I need to go get something from my van, it's parked down in the street."

If he doesn't get away, Viggo will come in his jeans again.

*

It _does_ have a body, or a least a palm-sized expanse of smooth flesh where all the tentacles merge, and it's smooth and soft, so soft, like the perfect, flawless skin on the backs of knees, thin and sleek and warmly lovely in Elijah's hand. The myriad colors of its limbs sort of ripple as it moves, a soft undulation, the grip of its tentacles firm and comfortably tight around Elijah's wrist and hand, a couple of them still upright and wavering, tips brushing against Elijah's other arm.

He has no idea what it's doing, but it's _something_, feels good like the light tickling of fingertips brushing against sensitive skin.

He hears Mortensen talking, but it's just noise, unimportant. Pet flexing and wriggling gently around his hand is important, the grinding, mind-bending pulse of blood in his groin is important, and the smell of it, even stronger now, like it's excreting some kind of powerful pheromone that affects Elijah on the deepest levels, is important. Everything else is secondary.

He isn't even aware of Mortensen leaving until Pet stops what it's doing, tentacles unwinding from Elijah's wrists to sway alertly toward the door. It quivers a little with what Elijah understands is tension, and Elijah's belly lurches in sympathetic unhappiness.

"Oh, no," he croons softly, and strokes his fingertips across Pet's largest tentacle, hoping it's something soothing for it. "No, it's okay, shh." It quivers and a few sinuous appendages sort of drift back toward Elijah in a way that at least _seems_ to indicate attention. "He'll be back," Elijah murmurs, "he--" and he has to wrack his brain to try and sort out what Mortensen had said before he'd gone out the door, but he gets it finally, along with the unlooked for but welcome recollection of Mortensen's first name --"just went to the van," he finishes. "Viggo wouldn't leave without you," he assures it, and some distant part of him is able to marvel that he doesn't feel in the least stupid talking to it, though he isn't at all certain that it understands him. And more immediately, he's sure Viggo _wouldn't_ leave without Pet, so he isn't lying to it. Elijah can't imagine that anyone would, ever, and if Pet were _his_, Elijah wouldn't ever leave it alone, not for a single second. "I'll take care of you," he whispers, and more of Pets limbs sway toward him, tickling gently against Elijah's cheeks for a moment. It makes a sound, a kind of high-pitch crooning sound, and Elijah smiles and twiddles his fingers against it.

It wraps tentacles around Elijah's fingers and twiddles them back, and Elijah laughs delightedly even as his belly knots with heat. He doesn't care if it's real, doesn't care if he's dreaming, doesn't give a shit if he's entirely lost his fucking mind.

Pet wraps itself around Elijah's hand again, anchoring itself with a half dozen of it's thickest tentacles —about three inches in diameter —and resumes the gentle, warm ripple of movement that seems to echo in Elijah's belly.

He can't help imagining how that would feel around his dick, the sleek-warm smoothness of its skin and the firm strength of its limbs wrapped around Elijah, and Elijah groans quietly and shifts his thighs open a little further, giving himself some room, torn between the desire to wriggle one hand free of Pet so he can push it against the bulge in his sweats, and entirely unwilling to stop touching it, even for a second. He contents himself with wrapping his fingers around one of the tentacles that's not attached to his wrist and stroking it gently, cheeks heating because the gesture is almost like stroking his own dick, curled fingers and careful pressure and a little twist. He wonders if it feels good to Pet.

Pet croons, a sound that effects Elijah viscerally, makes him shudder, and he whispers, "Oh, Christ, this has to be a dream." His voice sounds shaky and uncertain, and without meaning to he lowers both hands, keeping them steady and even so as not to disturb the creature, and presses the back of the hand it's sitting on to the ridge in his sweats, exhaling breathily at the wash of heat and almost unbearable pleasure, his eyes drifting half-closed but still fixed on Pet.

*

As soon as he's out the door and into the (antiquated and slow as fuck, but it means more time alone, which is what Viggo needs right now) elevator, Viggo slips a hand in his pants to cradle his throbbing dick—cradle, yes, nothing more, just to relieve some of the mad heated itch, using the other to deftly turn the knob on the transmitter and reopen the window into Elijah's apartment.

The image behind his eyelids flickers alive as the keyring in his hand jangles against the hard black shell of the electronic widget, but Viggo is too swept up in touch to even notice it at first; the hand in his pants aflame with the many sensations relayed by Pet. It's insane, the ghost silkiness of Elijah's skin in his palm layed over the softness of his own cock, the little back and forth that he finally understands, using his eyes again, is the motion of Elijah's finger stroking one of Pet's tails.

Elijah whispers soothing things to It as it moves bits over his face and Viggo's stomach lurches when Elijah says his name, _his name_ to Pet, and laughs softly.

Watching and listening intently now, trying to forget about his dick for the time it takes him to cross the dingy lobby and make it to the van (though he keeps his hand where it is, curled protectively over what feels like the rocket about to fucking explode in his briefs), Viggo can see that the animal is bigger now, its tails longer and more thick, his body more plump; the whole mass of it probably approaches that of an overfed cat, the lazy, castrated kind that hardly ever drags itself away from the bed.

Nothing about Pet is missing though, not that Viggo knows much about its reproductive system or even if it has one, but the nuns had promised a perfectly sane newborn specimen, and he knows that's what they delivered.

Once in the van Viggo needs to sit down, his knees buckling under the many assaults, and he pulls the zipper on his trousers down and pushes them off along with his underwear, heaving a sigh of relief. Taking his hand away from himself proves a little hard, tempted as he is to close it around his dick and squeeze immediately, but he does it too, focusing instead on Elijah's trembling voice and thinking _Oh no, not a dream, more like a dream **come true**_ in silent response.

Elijah's hands falls slowly to his crotch, holding ground for the beast that now spills over them, larger, and the noise coming from Elijah's mouth as the back of his hand finally weighs on his groin is a perfect echo of Viggo's own breathless moan.

Viggo shuts his eyes tight and rotates the angle of the wormhole, one light finger twiddling the tiny scroll wheel on the transmitter, gritting his teeth as his new point of view enhances by leaps and bound the clarity and the hotness of the tableau Elijah and Pet form together.

The creature _pushes_ down on the hand (something Viggo can feel as a tightening in his chest before it's visible), and then it _pulls_ itself half out of Elijah's palm with a burst of energy, slithering its strongest tentacles in the creases where thighs give way to torso, and Viggo keels backwards on the crumbly foam mattress in the van while Elijah mewls surprise and tips his head back, bliss on his face, his throat working convulsively.

After that it's a jumble of things Viggo can't separate for a while, too many visual, tactile and auditive stimuli entangled at once as Pet wriggles bits of itself over and into the distended elastic waistband of Elijah's sweatpants, revels (Viggo knows this by the flash of pure animal happiness spreading in his belly as the Pet's underbelly plasters itself on the spongy cloth and _sucks_) in the traces of sweat soaked in the fabric and rounds its shiny back, curling a thin freckled tentacle into the mess of soft wiry hair at the root of Elijah's cock—undiluted, uncut heaven.

*

If it's not real, Elijah doesn't have to bother with pretending disinterest or resistance or shame, he reasons.

There's a little shame anyway, hot cheeks and the fervent, desperate hope that Mortensen doesn't come back anytime soon because it's unlikely that he'd look favorably on Elijah molesting his Pet, but mostly there's just warm, pressing _sensation_.

It has one limb still wound around one of Elijah's wrists, but the others are all pressing warm and heavy —it seems heavier, but Elijah thinks that has to do with _where_ it's weight is resting rather than its actual bulk —into his lap. The bulk of it's body is centered over the searing ache that is Elijah's dick, excruciatingly good, painful, needful, fucking _ecstatic_, and its limbs seem to be everywhere, firmly wound around his thighs in a few places, one thick one around his waist, above the sweats but _beneath_ the hem of his t-shirt, flesh to flesh contact.

Elijah's head falls back and he hears himself, "uh uh uh," that overlaps, slippery, with Pet's quiet, rhythmic croon, and it is moving in his lap, moving against him in a way that Elijah wants to think is deliberate, not just the random shifting of an animal because that would be, that would be just, something, not right or something, but that's a lie.

He wants it to be deliberate, yeah, but if it isn't —it doesn't matter enough for Elijah to try and stop it, oh, because it's good, he's shivering and burning and it's not really even doing anything, just stroking Elijah's belly lightly with the tips of several tentacles and lying in his lap, crooning like a cat might purr (not that Elijah would get off on a cat purring in his lap, but this isn't anything like that, not even remotely).

He tips his head forward again to look at it, hunched over his own lap, and one tentacle —sort of shiny, Elijah notes, more gold than bronze and with swirls of different coloration mottling it artfully —drifts upward, quivering, until it finds Elijah's jaw. Elijah swallows hard, throat working, shuddering a little; sweat prickles on the back of his neck and his upper lip, and he really _really_ hopes Mortensen will stay gone for a little while, and then he forgets to think about it at all because the tentacle on his jaw slides up around the back of his neck and tugs. Elijah folds down without even considering it, and the tentacle continues around until it's all the way around Elijah's throat.

It isn't choking him. It's just there, firm pressure, _presence_, just _holding_ Elijah, just holding him.

Elijah's free hand goes up dreamily. He isn't sure what he even means to do with it; his head feels full of white noise, his skin crackling with the crazy itch of deep _want_. His fingertips brush the warm flesh, feels it ripple, and he's pretty sure he has not intention of pulling it away, maybe just wants to touch it, feel it. He's not afraid.

*

But another tentacle comes up and affixes itself around that wrist and tugs, pulling Elijah's hand away from his throat, and it draws his hand downward to rest along the top of his thigh like his other hand, but once it's there Pet doesn't let go, and Elijah can feel the slip-slick-slide of it's tentacle moving through the sweat on the back of his neck. "Oh," he says, and there's a slight tightening around his neck, like it's responding to the vibration of the sound, and it tugs him forward more so that Elijah thinks crazily that it's a good thing he's flexible, aware that at least one of Pet's smaller tentacles is sliding under the waistband of his sweats, slithering through Elijah's pubic hair, not really like a caress Elijah tells himself, but he groans a little and his dick throbs with heavy, urgent weight.

It's like it wants to touch of all him at once, and he thinks again that it should be bigger so that it _could_, and he wonders what it wants, and he wonders if he's going to come in his pants, and then he doesn't wonder anything because what it wants becomes clear.

It wants to touch his mouth again, it wants to push the tip of one tentacle against his bottom lip until Elijah's mouth falls open, helpless reaction, and push just slightly into Elijah's mouth, just barely brushing the tip of Elijah's tongue so that Elijah finds out it tastes just like it smells, spicy and a little smoky, something foreign, salt that might be from it or might be from Elijah's own skin, and Elijah's breath rushes out of his throat like he's been punched in the stomach and he chokes as he tries to take another, a garbled half-moan, high and incredulous.

He has to clench his eyes closed tight to get his breath back, get it to steady out into something useful for oxygenation, but he carefully doesn't pull away from the soft, barely-there invasion of his mouth, just wishes he could somehow push his hips up into the pressure of it against his groin in this position, not that he thinks he's going to need it for much longer because what it's already doing is good, God, so good, and it's not like anything Elijah's ever seen or even fantasized, not quite, it's all subtly different, but it's so much _realer_ even though it can't be, _feels_ so good, so good.

*

A persistent beeping yanks Viggo out of his erotic daze; some computer signal or other about money movement from some oversea bank to one of his off-shore accounts that he doesn't give a flying shit about right this minute, but it's good for something in that it gives Viggo back just enough grasp on here (inside the van, splayed like a starfish on the mattress with his legs sticking out and propped unvoluntarily on a jungle of network and satellite cables) and now (45 seconds away from shooting his load over a clean fucking pair of trousers _again_, dammit, why did he only push them off a ways and not completely?).

Something tickle inside his nose, like a sneeze building slowly, and Viggo shakes his head to try and dispel it. He keeps his eyes open as he does to make sure that the pornographic scene unfolding 8 floors up doesn't immediately reassert its hypnotic power over him, and clenches his toes in his boots. Toe action is always a good, grounding move. The whole of his skin is tingly from sheer empathetic excitement, a sheen of sweat (that Pet would luxuriously absorb if it could) covering his face and palms and the back of his neck.

Viggo stands and strips from the waist down properly this time, chucking his boots, taps the right combination of keys blindly on the small keyboard of the protected data terminal to kill the beeping and shakes his head again, dizzy.

He briefly considers using a little of the arnica lotion he keeps in the first-aid slash pharmacy box, maybe rub the palms of his hands with it to numb the overwhelming sensitivity and make things last longer; but ends up dismissing the idea.

It's probably useless considering how the inside of this mouth feels raw and full of blood and pulsing, taking into account how round and heavy his balls feel, how taking a step is enough to make him want to bite his lip, so powerful is the magnified sensation of his own asscheeks rubbing against each other—Fuck, even the inside of his asshole is somehow affected by the Pet's fucking waves of sensation, even the soft fragile inner surface of his goddamn _lungs_.

It's probably something to do with Pet's eagerness at finally feeding from a second person, the biological need in it that grew after Viggo's first imprint on it, a structural hunger getting slowly satiated for the first time.

Whatever the reasons, though, Viggo's in no state to conduct scientific observations now. What he wants to be doing is an _experiment_ for sure, it fully qualifies, and Viggo's brain will no doubt manage to extract useful data from it that he'll be able to churn through later... But it is foremost an existential experience (_a taste of paradise_).

Settling back on the mattress and leaning (carefully now, don't end up breathless again before you even _sit_) against the pillows, Viggo spreads his legs, knees bent, feet flat on the covers, and takes a few deep breaths. He closes his eyes.

The picture is nearly the same (Elijah hunched over his lap and rocking in small jerks, his knees open, his feet touching one another, and the Pet moving over him in slow waves and holding him captive by his throat) but the sounds are different now, each of Elijah's exhaled breath carrying a whiny moan of ecstasy—Viggo's chest seizes up lightning-fast, his mouth opening to let out a deep groan as both his hands meet at his groin and squeeze.

He takes his balls in one hand, mindful not to start rubbing upwards quite yet, not to roll them around and make himself delirious; with the other hand Viggo forms a tight circle of fingers around the base of his cock and fiercely holds his would-be orgasm back. To think he came earlier today, not so fucking long ago—age has been kind to him so far but it's still quite a festival for him to end up so madly aroused again so soon, which makes Viggo wonder briefly how absolutely uncontrollable the effect of all this would be to a younger guy, someone the age of say, Elijah.

But anyway, he's here now, he's hanging there, oh fuck yeah, not quite done, not all of his neurons fried dead, and it's time to get down to business, man, to get down and _dirty_.

Viggo concentrates and sends a gentle injunction to his Pet (still his, huh-uh, his to direct and feed and even, in that weird sexual way, feed _from_), just a little tug on the loose multidimensional leash, asking it to wiggle the tentacle tip resting on Elijah's lip. And Pet does, and gives a little jolt of its body in Elijah's lap at the same time—the rush of it (faint wetness from Elijah's soft, soft mouth, the brush of air as he inhales, probably tickled or aroused further by Pet's provoked movement, the amazing heat of his hard-on pressed against his belly by Pet's weight, the flavors erupting on Viggo's taste-buds all at once, not to mention the fucking technicolor _display_ behind Viggo's tightly clenched eyelids) makes Viggo heave a gasp and squeeze himself harder.

Whoa, okay.

The next minutes carve themselves in Viggo's memory with such ferocity that he could probably live the rest of his lifetime with them for sole masturbation material and still be some kind of content.

Alternating orders, Viggo plays Pet as if it is an instrument, or maybe as though it is the accessory used to make the instrument respond with sound: the drumstick for Elijah's drum, the bow to his violin. Every one of Pet's swishy bits gets a turn to wiggle and insinuate and grope, one after the other and then in twos and threes as Viggo gains assurance in the way Pet meets his queries. He's losing the physical battle and he knows it, his fingers white-knuckled on his aching, burning dick, a furiously hot stone drilling a hole of pain in his belly, but it almost doesn't matter.

Elijah's beautiful, it's fucking unreal how he writhes and pants, the little 'Oh's and 'Ha's and whispered "fuckfuckfuck" streaming out of the corner of his mouth, the slight distortion of anxious guilt that he gets at weird intervals when he can't help but throwing looks at the door.

Slowly Viggo changes the whole topology of Pet over Elijah's body—leaving the tentacles wrapped around his neck and teasing his mouth so delightfully, of course. When he's done with that part, Pet has curled several tails around Elijah's dick in a quasi-human replica of a hand, it's got a thick tentacle pressing upwards at the boy's taint and slithered up his crack, it holds one of Elijah's nipple hostage with a slow maddening stricture and flutters over it with a lighter, faster bit.

Viggo's about to pass out, but it's all fucking worth it.

*

Elijah will die, he thinks he will just burn up, when the tentacle in his sweats shifts, finally _finally_ to brush the furnace-hot skin of his swollen dick. He chokes for a second, disbelief and hope and soul killing _want_, and then it shifts again and it _curls_ and, "ohgodohohoh," Elijah whimpers and jams his eyes shut (but somehow has the presence of mind to keep his mouth _open_). His hands twitch on his thighs, the habit of arousal driving them toward his own groin, but they are stopped, stilled, he had forgotten that Pet is still holding his wrists and there is deepening constriction when he tries to move them, there is tension in the warmth around his wrists, and he is stilled. He cannot move his hands.

He doesn't fight it. He can't, the impulse that tells him he _should_ is so faint, drowned out and obliterated by the rushing demand that he doesn't _want_ to, and his breath sounds like a series of high, aborted yelps.

Pet shifts again, its whole body this time, the weight of it dragging across the straining fabric of Elijah's sweats, and he can't even breathe to moan, he can't even think or move as he feels more of its limbs nudging at the waist of his sweats, sliding sleekly along the ultra sensitive skin between his hipbones below his navel, downward and under and around, and he isn't even aware of several other tentacles pushing up his shirt until there is a bright spear of friction-not-pain that burns around his left nipple, and he opens his eyes to see one smallish tentacle, red-gold, almost iridescent, _beautiful_ curving up his pale, smooth chest, shocking against his skin, so bright, one of the slender ones, and it is, it has, the tip is curled _around_ Elijah's nipple, it is wrapped around the pale pink skin (which is flushing into a deeper shade as Elijah stares at it) tightly. Another, paler, like sand, eases up, winds around its fellow until its tip hovers, quivering near Elijah's nipple. It darts forward, a quick brush, and Elijah chokes out a soft wail of surprise and shocked arousal, and the tentacle still pressed to his lip slithers forward, sleek and neat, two or three inches into his mouth.

It twists, nudges, presses against his tongue, and Elijah feels mindless, sensation-driven, no longer questioning reality or even thinking, and it seems the most natural thing in the world to close his lips, move his tongue against it, suck lightly as spicy-smoky flesh as slick spit floods his mouth at the flavor of it.

He can hear himself, "mmm-mmm-mmm," soft sounds of urgency muffled, and he is rocking, rocking against Pet's body, and it's hard to move, he has no leverage like this, he his bent and pulled into position and he has no choice but to maintain it, but he strains anyway, pulse of pleasure flaring white behind his eyes and so good, yeah, so much better, so much...

He cries out when the lone tentacle wrapped around his dick moves, a ripple of muscle that lifts his dick so that his sweats tent and strain, and then holds his breath hoping for, wantingwanting_needing_ more, and then others, he doesn't know how many, several, wrap tight around him and flex not all together as one movement, but by degrees, different rhythms, varied in strength and speed and one of them pressed down between his balls and winds firmly around them and another, smooth and soft, slides behind his balls and back and Elijah rocks back without pausing to think, gives it room, and it nudges, just brushes, just barely _touches_ his asshole, and Elijah's eyes stutter open but he can't see, and he's only vaguely aware that he's shifted past the point of balance and fallen backward until his upper back hits the couch and his legs and lower body follow, forced upward by the tight coils of the Pet so that he's helpless like a turtle on it's back, only the curve of his spine on the floor, shoulders jammed up against the couch, and the sound he is making might be sobs or screams, even he can't tell, muffled and distorted around one of Pet's softly thrusting limbs.

_Please,_ he wants to say, _pleaseohpleaseohpleasepleaseplease,_ but he just rocks slightly in the impossible creature's grip, just chokes out sobbing sounds of pleasure and wriggles and sweats as it tightens around him, tightens everywhere, _pushes_ just a little, and gently, and he wishes it would push inside, be _inside_ him, but it just nudges and teases and the screaming, thrashing rush of his orgasm comes so abruptly, hard undulation around his dick now, around his balls, his nipple, his throat and both wrists, mouth full, body burning, he screams, tries to arch and can't, is heldfastbentdouble, cries muffled and hardly even aware when his sweats are tuggedshoved down around his thighs by some incomprehensible combination of movements.

He comes forever, he comes so _hard_, shivering tension and unthinkable pleasure, and when it lowers him, shifts him carefully downward so that he's splayed out on the ground, he is so warm, so warm and lax and heavy. It fits itself into the cradles below his hips, soft underside pressed damply to his bare and come-covered skin, and its slow ripples of movement are perfect, perfect while he's coming down, it is perfect, wonderful, and he drags one newly freed hand up his thigh to rest on the bulk of its body, and when the tentacle between his lips pulls back, slow, careful tug of removal, it lingers at his open, panting mouth, the tip brushing lightly against his lips once, twice, again, like a goodbye kiss.

*

Something's beeping again—not the same terminal, but the main computer, signaling a landmark point of its churning through some of the blueprints Viggo fed earlier in the day.

Viggo comes to, his hand resting shaped like a claw on his thigh. Fuck, did he really pass out? He saw stars, literally, and then completely shattered, that's what it felt like... Or maybe he fell asleep. Probably that, yeah. Not enough rest in the past week, what with the taming and the jump and staying awake long hours to tie in loose ends and needle info out of stubborn people. Oh well. It'll get better with some food, a proper night between sheets.

His mind snags on the concept. _Better_. Mm, yeah, even though his body balks at the mere prospect of getting up right now, even though a few seconds ago (minutes? How long did he stay there, unmoving, recuperating?), he'd have said it can't really get any better than this...

Because it can. The pet will grow, and next time Viggo might even stay in the room, and he'll be rested and fed and the last of the general unease he feels because of the jump will have finally faded. Elijah will get used to him, both of them, and. Well. It'll be _grand_.

Viggo yawns, a huge noisy yawn that takes him by surprise as he staggers to his feet, bubbling up from the depths of him. He cracks his neck and bends to lift his clothes then slip them on, slides his ass in the chair facing the screen of the computer, turns it on.

The display comes to life, color patterns of mathematical analysis, and Viggo jolts in his seat and closes his eyes tight, looking for the window that he left open all this time. With a sigh of relief he takes in the slightly ridiculous picture of Elijah, rag-doll splayed on the floor in his apartment, apparently asleep. The creature is slumped all over him, man, really bigger now—of course, come this time, come and not just sweat and flakes of older secretions; the only sounds in the apartment are the low whine of the fridge and Elijah's occasional snoring intake of breath.

He laughs. It seems dumb now that he ever could worry about this, that he wanted to kick his own ass for not having prepared better as Elijah looked at him with puzzlement and asked questions all starting with 'Um'. Viggo had him pegged right eons ago, deep down he _knew_ that it would all work out smoothly as soon as Elijah would get to touch and interact with the Pet... There's never been a thing to worry about.

And suddenly he can't wait to be back up there. He wants to see Elijah sleep but not like this, not from this removed (and don't forget fucking uncomfortable) position; he wants to be in the same room and share the same oxygen.

The desire isn't new—voyeurism is an inclination Viggo developed over months of following Elijah's life, but despite what a psychiatrist might think of his odd psyche (Viggo readily admits to being odd, and considering what passes for normal he even does so with a non-trivial amount of pleasure and pride), it's not the centerpiece of his behavioral make up. But it's never been this strong, and of course, never been _possible_ until now.

Viggo rushes through the necessary nightly sweep of the nearby frequencies and of the network, saves the latest blueprints-extracted charts and launches the next tasks, all under five minutes. He stretches as soon as up, feeling the little pleasurable echoes of the mind-blowing experience travel in his tired muscles, and he's singing quietly to himself as he slips his feet back in his boots, grabs his sleeping bag and closes the van with a happy turn of key.

Elijah's keyring is still in his pocket (taking them from the bundle of discarded clothes on the floor had given him a particular kind of joy, such an intimate thing, his hand fumbling and fondling Elijah's jeans, jeans that he could make himself believe were still warm from skin) and Viggo lets himself in smoothly, much easier than before when he had to work a mix of social engineering with some magnetic magic to get access into the building.

Once more he spends his elevator time looking in on the place, eyes closed, at peace this time. His two companions are asleep; it's hard to be sure when Pet sleeps or doesn't but Viggo hasn't felt the mad overlapping sensations from its quarter since he, er, recovered, which is the clearest indication he has to judge. He closes the window, toggling the transmitter off.

Inside, Viggo puts Elijah's keys on the table and his transmitter back in his shoulder bag that he carefully zips and buckles closed before adding the heavy combination lock. Then he strips, toeing boots and socks off and changing to the sweats and a clean t-shirt waiting for him in the backpack. He looks around.

Elijah's head is wedged a bit sideways against the foot of his fold-out sofa bed (unfolded, of course, there never is a good reason for Elijah to fold it back, never a guest, no serious tidying up or cleaning either, Viggo knows), which explains the snoring; it looks very uncomfortable. He looks young, and maybe not happy, but... Sated and peaceful, his forehead smooth, the shadows under his eyes a little less dark than before. His specs are askew and his t-shirt crumpled under his elbow; when did he take it off and why does Viggo not remember seeing that? Elijah's belly is creased over and under his navel, skin folded over itself because of the awkward not-quite-flat position; his chest isn't really visible, hidden under the body of the Pet, and neither is his cock, buried under a barely pulsing tangle of thick and thinner tails.

He's easy to lift and he doesn't wake up (the added mass of the animal nicely centered and clutching just enough not to slip an inch as Viggo moves him means Viggo can't form a precise idea of Elijah's real own weight, only of the way Elijah fits in his arms, his lean petite shape), but when Viggo lowers next to him on the bed he's trembling from it, from that first contact of their skins, his teeth clamped on his bottom lip and holding back a groan of felicity.

It takes him a while to stop shivering, quiet his wildly beating heart and muster enough fortitude to finish the practical stuff: rid Elijah's legs of his tangled sweatpants completely, take his socks off, fold his glasses on the rickety tubular metal chair against the wall with the small electronic alarm clock on it.

Up again, Viggo gets a glass of water from the tap (absolutely disgusting, but he's fucking _parched_, and he can dismiss his growing hunger in favor of sleep easily enough but the thirst won't let up on its own) and goes to piss, washes his hands and combs his hair backwards with his fingers. Shit, what a day.

Elijah curled on himself and rolled vaguely more on his side facing the wall (not much, Pet's bulk and appendages preventing a bigger change in Elijah's position); Viggo joins him on the bed, happy to have enough space to lie flat on his back after days of sleeping in weird places and in the cramped van.

His hand reaches out unconsciously for the warmth of Pet's soft shiny skin, and settles down when a tail lazily comes to coil in his palm, the thin tip wound around his thumb. There's a lot he should be thinking of and a lot he could be celebrating, but Viggo can feel his entire body shutting down on him, surrendering, craving rest.

He falls asleep in no time.

*


	2. Questions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally performed/posted/tigged on lj, [here](http://community.livejournal.com/tig_meh/3022.html).

Elijah wakes up so slowly it's like surfacing in stages, like a deep-sea diver, coming up bit by bit to allow his body to become reacquainted with the lack of tons of pressure.

He feels heavy and a little achey, but otherwise pretty good. Which is weird. Another one of the reasons that he doesn't pop uppers like there's no tomorrow is that there always _is_ a tomorrow, and it's not a very pretty one after he pushes himself past the edges of exhaustion. Usually the insides of his eyelids feel grainy and itchy, and his brain feels sunburned, like it's suffering from overexposure to the elements or like the inside of his skull is lined with razor wire.

None of that is currently apparent. His muscles feel like warm taffy and there's a gentle-good ache in his groin that makes him huff out a breath of satisfaction laced with amusement.

"Best. Dream. Ever." he asserts, his voice coming sludgy and groggy, and he's tempted to just go back to sleep, see if he can recapture it, or at least put off the moment when he has to admit that it's over and it'll probably be a one-shot deal. Dreams that good... Elijah doubts he'll get a repeat performance. God, he's so warm, so tempted to just roll over and bury his head under his pillow.

He doesn't, of course. He never does. He's not built like that, has never been able to drop back into sleep just because he doesn't want to emerge into the harsh-bright day. He's awake so it's time to get up, time to get to work. Time to leave behind the heavy-warm feeling of well-being pressing on his chest.

He lifts one hand to shove the comforter off of him—thinking vaguely that if he weren't so warm and cozy, he'd be more inclined to get up —and the backs of his knuckles skate lightly over an expanse of smooth, silky skin that most definitely doesn't belong to him.

Elijah's eyes snap open, but he doesn't look. He isn't sure he wants to see. Or wants _not_ to see. He stares at the ceiling for several long seconds, and ponders the weight on his chest. Not just warm well-being. No. An actual weight. The weight of _something_.

He moves his hand, lets his knuckles skim across it again, and there is something tight and fearful and hopeful in his chest.

_Real,_ he thinks, not quite a statement or a question either one. He turns his palm down and rests it on top of the weight, and his fingers curl comfortably around the bulk of a relatively thick tentacle, which in turn shifts slightly and curls around Elijah's hand and up his wrist. His pent up breath leaks slowly from his chest, a very quiet sigh, and the fluttering in his belly escalates to something less like hope and more like excitement. Steeling himself, he forces his gaze down from the ceiling.

"Oh," he hears himself breathe quietly, a softly exultant exclamation. Several of Pet's appendages lift up from where they're sprawled against Elijah's chest and belly and sort of quiver in his direction. Elijah feels a laugh bubbling up in his throat, and his eyes are burning suspiciously. His other hand slides up to cradle the creature, and he feels it shift more decisively, tentacles against Elijah's hips and thighs curling up and bunching to push itself up higher on his chest. It takes him several seconds to relate the feeling to the understanding that he's naked, and his head is abruptly filled with the last things he remembers from the night before, the feel of Pet wound all around him and the crushing orgasm and the irresistible languor that had followed it.

"Oh, shit," he whispers, paralyzed with dread. "Viggo." He turns his head before he thinks about doing it, and for a moment he's so shocked at the sight of another guy sleeping beside him in bed that his mind is completely empty of thought. Elijah isn't sure how long he just lays there and stares, but Pet makes a soft squeal and Elijah comes back to himself, realizing he's unconsciously tightened his grip on the creature. He forces his hands to relax, strokes loosely curled fists up a couple of tentacles in apology, and stares at Viggo in his bed.

Elijah has no memory of Viggo coming back. He has no memory of anything after... well, _after_, but he's naked and in bed, and he definitely hadn't got here under his own power. _Oh, man,_ he thinks, dismayed and uncertain. Last night, Elijah had definitely, um, done _things_ to Viggo's pet, had definitely "played" with it in a thoroughly inappropriate manner, and he doesn't see how Viggo could not _know_. He has to have come back and found Elijah asleep on the floor with his—God, his sweats were around his _knees_, he remembers abruptly, and the blood rushes to his face in a hot flood of wickedly sharp embarrassment and shame.

_He's still here,_ the rational part of Elijah's mind observes, but something like panic is roiling in Elijah's belly, and he's not sure what to do. Yeah, Viggo's still here for now, but maybe he'd just been too tired to go last night or maybe he hadn't been able to disentangle his pet from around Elijah's limbs (_oh God, would he be angry?_) or maybe he'd only stayed so he could scream at Elijah in person this morning.

Elijah wants to scramble out of bed, retreat to someplace that he can think, the bathroom maybe, but he's still got a double armful of smooth, supple limbs, several of which have wound themselves around Elijah's arms and waist, but a couple of which are wrapped around _Viggo's_ sleeping wrist, and Elijah is unwilling to let it go and uncertain of how to get it to let go of Viggo.

"Okay, okay," he mutters, and then bites down on his bottom lip to shut himself up. He talks to himself, he knows it—he doesn't have anyone else to talk to—but this is just not a good time. He slowly, by increments, pushes himself upright, trying to hold Pet steady against him. Pet helpfully winds bits of itself (himself? herself? hrm.) up around Elijah's shoulders and neck, anchoring, but it doesn't let go of Viggo's wrist either. Elijah turns his shoulders away from Viggo—trying to judge how firm Pet's grip is on him —and notices for the first time that Pet is... well, _bigger_. Heavier, maybe, it's hard to tell. Elijah hadn't exactly been taking exact specifications on its weight last night, but definitely bigger, yeah, because it had fit comfortably sprawled on Elijah's belly last night, after (he remembers the feel of it rippling against his skin, and has to hastily banish that from his mind lest it cause more than just the semi he's currently sporting, which he's going to blame on having to piss if Viggo wakes up and asks), and now it's overspilling even the expanse of his chest, which admittedly isn't that much broader than his waist, but it is _somewhat_ broader, and besides that, one of it's thickest tentacles is around Viggo's wrist, and Elijah is _sure_ that it's at least as thick as Viggo's wrist, and it definitely hadn't been last night.

_Impossible,_ he thinks, and then chokes out a little snorting sound, because this whole damn thing is impossible, isn't it?

He needs to get out of this bed and somewhere he can think, somewhere he doesn't have to worry about Viggo waking up and catching Elijah naked with Viggo's creature. Elijah slides his hand around the appendage around Viggo's wrist and slides it down until it's fairly close to Viggo's arm, and then carefully, gently tugs.

Viggo shifts on his back, and gives a soft, moaning sigh, and Elijah freezes, holding his breath, not even blinking. When Viggo settles again, Elijah carefully, carefully gives another tug. "C'mon, Pet," he whispers, stroking the tentacle coaxingly with the tips of his fingers, and he feels a little dizzy with relief when it loosens—Viggo's wrist rolls to one side so that it's resting against his flat, naked belly, and Elijah quickly averts his eyes, blushing, feeling guilty for even looking, which is stupid of course—and slides itself backward through Elijah's loose fist—Viggo shifts again, huffs out a breath, and Elijah nearly has a heart attack—and then upward to curl around Elijah's arm from his elbow to his wrist.

_Jesus,_ he thinks shakily, and eases off the bed slowly so as not to jounce it.

His thundering heartbeat eases a little when he turns into the short hall leading to the bathroom, and he finally feels like he can breathe again when he gets the door shut behind him.

He doesn't know if the creature can sense his agitation, but it seems as good an explanation as any for the way it's rubbing one smooth tentacle (this one is kind of orange-ish, but not really, Elijah sees in the mirror, it's like the color isn't quite stable, and he's sure once he settles down and figures out what's going on he'll be a lot more curious about that) against Elijah's cheek and making that same crooning sound from last night, except it's sort of intermittent instead of one long sound, so it almost sounds like it's chirping. Elijah smiles in spite of the anxious churning in his belly, and pets at a bundle of tentacles that's slung over his shoulder like the carry strap of some unlikely luggage.

Looking at in in the mirror is weird. Looking at it clinging to Elijah's chest, all curves and smooth lines and rippling color and the pressure of it's limbs locked around Elijah's arms and neck and waist and one thigh...

"Fucking impossible," he says to his reflection, but his reflection doesn't look like it believes it any more than Elijah does. Impossible or not, it _is_. Incontrovertibly, it exists, pressed warmly to Elijah's chest and smelling so damn good, spice and... a little sweet, he thinks he smells something sweetly familiar about it now, or maybe he's just getting used to it. "Fucking impossible," he repeats, but it's barely a whisper this time.

It _is_ fucking impossible, but Elijah believes.

Eventually, he stops staring at it (in his arms and in the spotty, clouded mirror in the bathroom) and digs around in a pile of laundry until he finds a pair of jeans. Pet is helpfully cooperative while Elijah's getting into them, clinging firmly so Elijah has no problem using both hands. He can't quite bring himself to detach it so he can put a shirt on. Pet covers most of his chest anyhow, he reasons.

And as far as Viggo goes...

Well, there isn't anything Elijah can do about that, is there? Either the guy knows what happened (more or less, anyway, and Elijah hopes _less_, as thinking of anyone knowing the details makes his face burn), or he doesn't.

Elijah just has to think of a way to calm him down, if it turns out he's pissed. There has to be some way Elijah can convince him not to take Pet and leave.

He _can't_ take Pet.

Eventually, he goes to make coffee because he can't think of anything else he can do.

*

"You're gonna need a name."

Viggo blinks, turning his head sharply in the direction of the voice—Elijah. He's used to hearing that voice; this isn't an information he needs to grapple for (and anyway Viggo is the type of guy who's awake in a fraction of a second, it comes from too much travel in uncertain areas).

"Or maybe you already have one, hmm? We'll have to ask, later."

Elijah's standing in front of the table at the far side of the room, not the computer table but the makeshift plank-on-cheap-folding-legs table located right under the dirty window, with his back turned. The reason his voice was loud enough to wake Viggo is that he turned his head that way, cheek brushing the tentacles of Pet wound around his shoulder, apparently addressing It.

The beast is plastered to Elijah's back—it can be amazingly flat when it wants, Viggo notices—and it's holding itself there by its many limbs, backpack-straps style ones slung over shoulders, a few laced around Elijah's torso and a thicker one around his waist, two little thin tails scrunched up in his hair. It's almost like Elijah carries a baby on his back, like these African women bundling their children in wads of fabric, wearing them in slings. That's it, yeah, the Pet has hung himself from Elijah's body like a sling. Weird sight really, but it awakens heat in Viggo's gut regardless.

And then Viggo _feels_ him, a tactile double-take as his eyes finish taking in the view, and it steals his breath away. The hair on his chest raise up in goosebumps with the phantom sensation of Elijah's own heat and muscles in his arms jump; Viggo's wrapped around him, wrapped up close and clutching—the pad of his pinky finger tingling from a kind of tickle because one of Pet's tentacle tips rests on Elijah's treasure trail.

It looks like Pet's enough of a blanket that Elijah didn't feel the need to put a shirt on.

Viggo closes his eyes and shifts discreetly under the sheet. Nothing says he has to get up immediately, and it's nice to be able to stay there, to listen and _sense_ and share space with Elijah unnoticed.

When he awakes the second time Elijah's speaking to himself again (himself and not the creature this time), still hunched over the table. Impossible to tell how much time has passed, it looks like it's not much, but Elijah can keep doing the same thing for long stretches of time and his present position isn't enough of a hint.

From his imperfect angle Viggo watches Elijah's precise movements (little measured jerks of his elbows that Viggo's eyes perceive but also the shift of Elijah's skin on his ribcage and the quiet, focused thump of his heart under Pet's hold) and tries to deduct what, exactly, he's doing.

Elijah moves off to the right, reaching for a legal pad and a felt-tip pen to scribble something down, muttering, and Viggo gets a glimpse of the old electronic microscope sitting on the table, its white plastic shell yellowed with time. He's never seen it before (Elijah's a theoretical physicist, concerned with equations, working with computers and whiteboards; he's not a chemist or a biologist), Elijah must have dragged it out of the metallic Army trunk, painted over in beige, that he keeps equipment in. There are three tiny petri dishes laid out next to it.

He frowns, reaching out mentally not to make Pet move but to cop an internal feel, trying to determine if Elijah wounded Pet in anyway, maybe sliced a bit of it for an improvised biopsy. He doubts it.

Elijah's already enamored of it (at least that's what it—what _they_ looked like yesterday, a couple of improbable lovers curled up together in abandon, and the memory of it runs hot in Viggo's veins and makes him briefly close his eyes), and he's too good a scientist to ever risk something like that—indeed, Viggo's tentative probing doesn't reveal anything.

"Good day," Viggo says softly, sitting up. _Don't scare him yet._ He's hungry. He needs to piss.

"I see you two get along."

*

Elijah twitches at the sound of Viggo's voice (_Good day?_ What kind of thing to say is that? And last night, it had been _Good Evening_, like a traveling salesman or something? Weird.), but he doesn't turn. Guilt prickles between his shoulder blades and squirms uncomfortably in his belly.

"Hi," he mumbles, and bends back over the microscope in the hopes that Viggo will see he's busy and won't try to talk to him. The problem is, what's under the microscope can't keep his attention for long, because it's nothing. Nothing at all. Just like the other two dishes, all of which _should_ contain epithelial cells from Pet.

Which doesn't make the slightest bit of sense, of course. The swabs Elijah had taken —from surface skin, of course, he can't imagine jabbing Pet with a needle—should at least show _something_. At the very least, they should show Elijah's own epithelials, as Pet has been in direct skin to skin contact with him for the last ten hours at least.

That's assuming that Pet's epidermis is structurally similar to that of most mammals, which is to say that it's either keratinized or non-keratinized stratified squamous, which seems reasonable as an assumption, since Pet seems comfortable in an environment in which humans thrive. Elijah's considered that Pet might have more in common with aquatic creatures, cuttlefish possibly (the more Elijah thinks about it, the more he thinks the oddly transitory colorations and patterns across Pet's skin is reminiscent of chromatophores, or something similar at least, which is pretty much the province of cephalopods—which Pet arguably has quite a lot of other characteristics in common with, Elijah has to admit), but that doesn't seem quite right either. Pet has shown no particularly need or affinity for water—it had poked a tentacle under the faucet while Elijah was filling up the carafe to make coffee, but only for a moment, and Elijah wasn't even sure it hadn't been an accident.

And its body temperature seems to indicate mammalian properties. It's warm-blooded, Elijah sure of it.

So it doesn't make sense.

He braces both palms on the edges of the table and leans, frowning and chewing his bottom lip. Thinking, face tipped up to the meager sunlight that filters in through the dirty window.

He's almost forgotten entirely about Viggo when there's a creaking from the fold out behind him. Elijah turns around, and Viggo's just sitting up, rubbing at his eyes. His hair is a comically tumbled mess, and the scruff on his cheeks is darker than it had been last night. When he lowers his hand from in front of his eyes, though, they are as palely disturbing as they had been the night before.

What had he been doing for the last ten minutes? Something cool and nervous shivers down Elijah's spine? Watching Elijah?

Pet, maybe close enough to feel the not-quite shiver, ripples it's body a little more tightly around Elijah, and emits a soft croon-like hum. All of it's vocal emissions are high-pitched, Elijah notes, and files the information away to consider later. One of Pet's tentacles twitches lightly along Elijah's neck.

Viggo's eyes flicker in the direction of the movement, and Elijah feels his cheeks heat with blood. He turns away quickly, detouring around the end of the couch-bed. "There's, um. Coffee," he offers hesitantly, moving into the kitchen. "Or."

He wrackes his brain for something to add; he doesn't actually have much else.

"Dr. Pepper," he blurts, and then bites his tongue to still it.

*

Viggo ho-hums and leaves the sofa bed for the kitchen, stretching lazily. He expected Elijah to be less... polite, more eager to pump information out of him; he's not that asocial after all. Seems like he at least remembers the basics.

He serves himself a cup of coffee, belatedly worries that Elijah might find weird that Viggo went straight for the right kitchen cupboard to find a clean mug (plastic, almost all of Elijah's dishes and cooking gear is plastic). Elijah's not looking anymore though, already back to frowning over his notes, presenting Viggo with his Pet-covered side again.

Elijah has let Viggo's remark about the animal go unanswered, which had to've been deliberate, but it's hard to sort out if it was out of a calculated choice to steer their interaction, or out of a flustered lack of anything to answer.

Added to the whole 'there's some coffee' host-type fumbly spiel, though, Viggo starts to think as the caffeine passes from his stomach to his brain, it indicates a minimum of (possibly unconscious) conversational shrewdness that needs to be noted. Viggo combs his fingers through his hair, finishes the coffee and files it away.

He goes for a piss and ends up making a face at himself in the mirror as he washes his hands, stretching his mouth wide this way and that, rolling his lips against his gums and giving his eyebrows a workout.

There's a subtle difference all over now, receiving gentle warm vibes from Pet's direction and the feel of another human life so close, not just geographically but kinesthetically, intertwined with his own, under his fucking skin. It's good, yes, but it's unsettling and new. Now that he's slept enough (and comfortably) the remnants of the swirling unease from his jump have dissolved, only they're replaced with this.

Viggo splashes water on his face and goes back to the living-room, where Elijah is now seated in front of his computer (the whiteboard that was masking the screen before has been moved to the wall behind it, where it hangs from a bolt). Pet still hanging against his back, Elijah's had to push his desk chair on the side: he's sitting on the kitchen stool.

"I'm hungry," Viggo tells him, and Elijah makes a small sudden movement that it's hard to identify as a shrug or a jerk of surprise, turning towards Viggo and peering, incurious, from behind his glasses. Possibly it's both.

*

"There's--" Elijah says, and flickers his eyes toward the computer screen for a nervous moment, wondering if he should minimize the window, which is currently displaying the chemical breakdown of chromoatomes. Probably not, he decides after a moment's consideration. He doubts Viggo will care about Elijah wanting to know how Pet's color-shifting works. Besides that, the other open page is definitely one Elijah doesn't want Viggo to see. He shifts uncomfortably, and catches a glimpse of one of Pet's tentacles coiled lazily around Elijah's left wrist.

He smiles faintly.

"Theres?" Viggo prompts, and when Elijah glances back toward him, he's smiling slightly, both eyebrows arched in question.

"Oh, um," Elijah says uncomfortably, feeling his cheeks heat. "Sorry. There might be something, um, frozen. In the freezer."

"Indeed?"Viggo asks; he isn't smiling, but Elijah gets the distinct impression that he's amused.

Annoyance flares in Elijah's belly, an uncomfortable smolder. "You know I don't have any money," he snaps without thinking. "It's one of the first things you said when you invited yourself in."

*

"Right," Viggo says, nodding decisively. He waits a beat, convinced Elijah will go from there to a more pointed question, make Viggo justify his irruption in Elijah's life and elaborate on that, but Elijah frowns and scowls; he turns back to the screen in a belligerent manner.

The glow on his cheeks looks nice, not the exact same flush Elijah gets when he jerks off but something softer, that Viggo hadn't yet seen. So young, he thinks, because the whole act has the air of a teenage show of rebellion, and he decides that it's enough needling for now. He _is_ hungry after all.

"I'm thinking I'll breakfast outside."

Elijah doesn't turn, and the ridge of his knotted brow that Viggo can see from the side is still there as he makes the colorful rows of stuff in his window (chemistry symbols? equations?) scroll with an energetic middle finger. Viggo's sorely tempted to make Pet wiggle a bit (or two or three bits), see if Elijah stays stoic and angry then. But he doesn't.

"I'll be gone then. I'll bring some food back."

When even that doesn't get more than a twinge of Elijah's shoulders (and Pet readjusts its grip around them, so Viggo finds his arms going from slack to tense at his sides and his knees bucking slightly), Viggo suddenly needs to be out of there. Out and away and _alone_.

Lifting his locked shoulder bag on his way to the door, he almost kicks the half-empty can of Dr. Pepper he left there yesterday, picks it up. Pet's carrier sits empty in the middle of the room, the backpack sat in its upturned lid. Viggo wonders if he should says something else, warn Elijah to take care of Pet, act proprietary towards it maybe—something to make Elijah take a little notice of him or show a bit more respect.

The soda is tepid and flat now, but Viggo empties the can on his way down regardless. Something to do in the elevator.

*

As soon as Viggo is out the door, Elijah surges up from his chair and locks it behind him. As soon as he does, it occurs to him that Viggo probably heard that.

"Shit," he mutters, and rests his forehead against the closed door for a moment. It feels like hot coals are squirming in his stomach, and he turns away from the door to brace his palms on the top of the computer table, taking deep breaths and trying to calm himself down.

On his back, Pet is rippling soothingly. Elijah wonders if it can sense his tension and recognizes it as a negative emotion. A tentacle brushes lightly against the hinge of Elijah's jaw, and Pet chirps.

"Right," Elijah says, and straightens. He glances at the computer and ponders chromatophores for a few seconds, then decides he can come back to it. He wants to take advantage of Viggo's absence to take a really good look at Pet.

He clambers up into the middle of the fold out and pretzels his legs in front of him. "Okay, you impossible thing. C'mere."

It takes a couple of minutes to unwind Pet from around a Elijah's various limbs; Elijah unwound a tentacle from his right wrist only to find that another had crept around his left while he was doing it. After the third time, Elijah begins to wonder if Pet thinks it's a game (or if it's even capable of it, if it could be playful, like a many-limbed puppy), or if it genuinely doesn't want to lose contact with him.

He isn't actually sure which idea he likes better. He tugs at a tentacle, which promptly twists and wriggles out of his grasp and latches around his wrist. Elijah snickers and sneaks his other hand under one of the larger tentacles around his thigh and twiddles his fingers against it. Those fingers are immediately captured by a half dozen smaller tentacles, pinioning them.

Elijah snorts giggles. "Stop being contrary," he mutters, trying to wrestle his fingers away from the smallish tentacles that are now trying to take over his hand. "I just want to look at your belly."

Pet tugs at the fingers of the hand it's captured, one at a time, but in rapid progression. Elijah snorts again, not quite able to help it. "What are you?" he murmurs.

Tentacles unravel from Elijah's fingers abruptly, and then with that same blinding, startling speed Elijah had noted last night, all the tentacles wound around various parts of Elijah slide away and it spills into his lap like a colander full of cooked spaghetti, boneless and loose and warm.

Did it understand him?

Elijah can't begin to guess. Its reactions so far have been hard to track at best. It has responded to his physical reactions to things—at least that's how it _seems_—like tension, but he isn't sure what that means, if anything. It might not be indicative of higher cognition even if those responses had been genuine rather than flukes. It might have basic animal intelligence, like a dog or a cat, and still have the ability to respond to a human being's emotional state.

"Not enough data," Elijah mutters, and gently turns Pet in his hands. It moves only to shift errant tentacles out of the way, and doesn't seem to have a problem with Elijah studying the skin of it's belly. The mass of its body is definitely larger, though it still doesn't seem big enough in relation to the number and size of tentacles. Its belly is indistinguishable from its back in all respects to the point that Elijah isn't actually sure if he's looking at the right bit of anatomy. Does it even matter to Pet? Is it—he giggles softly—reversible?

It takes several minutes and a piece of blue electrical tape to figure out that if he flips Pet over, it always turns itself back the same way, and then a few more minutes after that to discover that he can tell its belly from its back by touch, if not by sight.

The skin there is faintly finer, very smooth and sleek, but even then he can't tell by sight.

Pet is remarkably patient about it, Elijah thinks at first, but he eventually realizes pet is crooning very quietly—he thinks of a purring cat again—as Elijah handles it, and then he's smiling again, feeling stupid, but also feeling pretty fucking _happy_.

*

Viggo comes back after an hour and half spent driving and shopping, grumpy as hell. People on the sidewalks and crossing at the wrong light annoyed him. The idiot taking his order at the drive-through annoyed him. The fat girl ringing his purchases (well, scanning and beeping them) downright infuriated him, with her pale flaccid fingers like so many overcooked bratwursts moving too slow, too limp and weak over the frozen goods.

Ninety minutes on his own but never actually _alone_ in his body, those weird flippy floppy sensations staggering along his nerves as though he was swimming in the dark in some other plane at the same time as walking along the grocery store's isles, and Viggo's about ready to take a cheese grater to his skin to make it stop—

Of course the more obvious, handy solution would've been to stop somewhere and open a fucking window, add eyesight to the array of feeling by spying on Elijah like usual... But Viggo was irrationally angry by then, and he sped up back to the apartment instead, letting the waves of ticklish and occasionally glue-ish scrapes build up and provide a solid backing to the rage.

It takes him four tries circling the block to find a handy, long-term free parking spot for the van; two tries with the dumb plastic crate that keeps folding back before he can arrange all of his load in a portable manner; seven different intercom buttons before someone beeps the door to the building open instead of asking him who he is suspiciously (and why didn't he make a copy of those keys yesterday, or take them with him when he left, why?); two full minutes for the elevator to come down. By the time Viggo exits at the right floor his jaw is clenched so tight it hurts, and he's very fucking seriously considering scientific research on his own just so he can make emotions travel along with motor commands on the immaterial leash linking Pet to him.

The beast is probably having _fun_ (whatever fun is for its mysterious species, anyway), palpating and twining and sliding all over Elijah's smooth body, inhaling heated pheromones and musk and getting gentle awed strokes of his fingers in return; Viggo gets sulky stares, silent shrugs and—a bolted fucking door.

_No._

Viggo briefly considers using the Pet; it'd be easy enough to tug it away from Elijah and make it fetch the keys or something, but to work it'd require that Viggo opens that window to see what he's doing and somewhere along the line he apparently decided he wouldn't, not this time, no matter how senseless the promise to himself is. And he has enough anger to melt that cheap security lock himself, thank you very much.

From the depths of his shoulder bag Viggo extracts a powerful magnet and his set of pick locks, and he funnels all his rumbling petulance into intent, stilling his body save for his fingertips, steeling himself against any Pet-induced jerkiness with deep breaths.

The door unlocks with a small click. Viggo puts away his tools in his bag and rolls his neck and stiff shoulders; he can feel a regular back and forth ghosting of what are probably Elijah's fingers on Pet's back. It doesn't stop as he pushes the door ajar, loaded with bag and crate, which must mean that Elijah is too focused to have heard Viggo yet. Good.

He strides in and lets the crate drop from hip-height and clatter to the floor, and then announces, loud (and tonelessly, trying for scary and sure and goddamn _booming_), without looking around:

"Food. Put it away. Don't ever lock the door on me when I leave you alone with my Pet."

*

Elijah jumps when the door slams open with enough force that it bounces off the wall behind it, on which Elijah's whiteboard is currently pegged.

For an instant, he's torn between the desire to hide Pet and jump up to inspect the damage.

It turns out not to be necessary to hide Pet, as evidenced by Viggo roaring his displeasure.

Pet doesn't react to the bellowing, which leads Elijah to believe either a) Viggo does this sort of thing often enough that Pet is used to it, and feels it's nothing to be concerned about, or b) Pet is lacking the auditory facilities to receive the information, which Elijah has to consider, since Pet doesn't have any dermal openings at all that he could locate in his meticulous examination.

Whatever the reason, Pet doesn't start or react in any way, and since there's no need to hide it from Viggo, Elijah feels free to dart across the room, shoving the door shut to examine the whiteboard. "Fuck," he snarls, fumbling blindly for a dry erase marker, vaguely aware of Viggo watching him. One of Pet's tentacles makes a move for the whiteboard, and Elijah brushes it aside absently as he uncaps the marker and quickly writes over the smeared bits of equation.

When he's finished, he jams the lid back on the marker and whirls on Viggo (who looks, Elijah thinks, nearly as surprised as Elijah feels at finding himself doing so), and hisses, "Since you clearly had no problem getting in, I'll thank you not to destroy my work in a fit of ill temper, Mr. Mortensen. Next time you go out, take the fucking keys, because I _will_ lock my goddamned door. I don't dare leave it unsecured in this neighborhood, not if I value my life and the life of _your Pet_."

*

"This equation has been on this board for months, _Mr. Wood_, and you would be able to recite it in your fucking sleep."

Viggo says it slowly, articulating, and he's surprised to hear the calm in his own voice, to find his anger deflated. It's almost pleasant knowing that he can provoke reactions. Fuck that, it _is_ pleasant.

He turns to get chips from the crate and goes to sit on the sofa bed with the pack in hand, cracking it open.

"You just spent a whole night with that door unlocked, it didn't seem to bother you then. Do you have a time-sensitive kind of selective paranoia?" Elijah looks at him with his mouth open, and Viggo stuffs his own with chips and chews with loud crackling noises. "Indeed, next time I'll take the fucking keys. Maybe you could have told me I should in advance."

*

"Didn't do it on purpose. I fell asleep," Elijah mutters, but he doesn't really want to go into that, so he merely flips the locks on the door (three), arching a brow at Viggo that indicates the improbability of Elijah _having_ three locks on his door if he weren't normally quite conscientious about using them. Viggo says nothing; merely continues to chomp noisily at his chips.

Elijah's belly rumbles loudly enough to be heard in the hallway, and he sighs. It's pointless to snipe at Viggo anyhow. He can't afford to piss him off, and Elijah's pretty sure that's what really has his back up about Viggo slamming in and issuing orders and booming at Elijah.

He hunkers down to take a look in the crate of groceries, pulling items out at random. It isn't until he's pulled out two kinds of bell peppers—yellow and green—that he makes the connection that he's got everything he needs to make his standard beef stir fry, and in the correct proportions. Even down to the peppers. Elijah doesn't buy red bell peppers. He knows that they don't taste any different, not really, but he's never liked them in his stir fry.

And then he remembers: _"This equation has been on this board for months, Mr. Wood, and you would be able to recite it in your fucking sleep."_

He stands slowly, tipping his glasses up with the back of his hand to rub at his eyes.

Marlboro Lights and Dr. Pepper. And.

Elijah's cheeks burn, but. It would be an awful stretch to accept that this man knows these things about him, and _doesn't_ know what Pet would be to him. It would be foolish to believe it, no matter how panicky the idea of it makes Elijah feel.

Once you discover the configuration of a thing, you can manipulate its individual components; it's one of the basics of physics, and the premise under which Elijah has been doing the majority of his research and theoretical application for the last year and a half.

_Okay_, he thinks, and takes a deep breath. Pet flexes around his torso in a sinuous ripple and the tip of one tentacle pokes into Elijah's belly button for a second.

With immense and concentrated effort, Elijah ignores Pet. It's hard as hell.

Cigarettes and Dr. Pepper and the offer of money for funding had happened last night, and after initial protests, Elijah had barely given any of the three any thought, though they are all things he would've said would tempt him if he'd been asked twenty-four hours ago.

And Pet.

All things designed to placate him. Designed to absorb his attention while a perfect stranger insinuated himself into Elijah's small and relatively orderly life.

And it had worked embarrassingly well. Only one of the four had really been necessary, after all. Elijah hasn't had a soda or smoked a cigarette yet.

_Discover the configuration of events,_ he thinks, and looks at the groceries at his feet, then at Viggo.

"Who are you?"

*

Viggo's only alarmed for a second—for some reason he didn't expect that exact question to be the first one, nor did he think Elijah would manage to ask it now.

But the guy is clever, more like a genius really, and Viggo's known that a long time so he can't be totally thrown off when Elijah uses his brain. Plus he's getting what he was looking for, however uncomfortable that turns out to be: direct interaction. Dialog.

"Viggo Mortensen," he smiles, and Elijah rolls his eyes and Viggo has to laugh. "What, you could've googled it, you know."

He gets up, rolling the top of the bag of chips, and steps closer. "You should cook, now that you can; I can't. Talking's better done over food." _And it'll give me time to figure out what to tell you exactly at first._ "Maybe get that animal off your back for a while?"

It's a test, kind of, Viggo wants to see how pushy Elijah will get with questioning, and how reluctantly he can let Pet slide off him when it's not just to poke at it in scientific or childish glee—which Viggo guesses is what Elijah was doing that made his skin fill up and his stomach roil while he went shopping.

*

Elijah bristles on Pet's behalf; he knows it's totally ridiculous, but he doesn't like Mortensen's tone. He can hardly do anything about it, however. Elijah doesn't doubt for an instant that his not-so-subtle mention of Pet is meant as a reminder of who it belongs to. A reminder that Pet isn't Elijah's, and that if Elijah insists on being too pushy, Mortensen could always take his toys and go home.

He takes a long moment to consider the situation as objectively as he's capable of, which, he's aware, isn't very objective at all.

The evidence suggests that Viggo wants to be here. For whatever reason, he has deliberately placed himself here, has gone to some lengths to do so, and Elijah doubts very much that Viggo is likely to simply throw up his hands in disgust and leave, that being the case.

He can deliver unsubtle reminders all he likes; the truth is, Elijah has something Viggo values enough to come here.

Elijah supposes it's information on bridge theory. He doesn't have anything else, and that's the God's honest truth. It's vaguely possible that it's not bridge theory itself, but rather Elijah's own understanding of the scientific principles that allow him to formulate it. Or almost formulate it, anyway. Why else offer Elijah money to further the work?

So.

They are both on equal footing, more or less.

They each have something that the other wants.

And Elijah isn't _quite_ willing to be totally controlled by what he wants.

Pet shifts minutely and croon-chirps; one tentacle has slipped very slightly under the waist of Elijah's jeans. Elijah shivers.

At least, not yet.

"I'll cook if you talk," he says flatly. "You can start with how you know what you know."

*

_Goddamn._ He's too fucking fast.

Viggo shrugs. "I'm not the one who's hungry, I just had tacos for breakfast. You don't have to cook if you'd rather starve."

"I've been watching you for a while," he continues, marching (as much as you can call it marching when it only takes four steps) into the kitchen and plonking down on the second stool, stoically, adding another light shrug to the non-committal sentence. Ultimately Viggo supposes he'll have to share his own secret, and if he's honest with himself he's even looking forward to that. But fuck, it's too soon.

"I was interested."

He rests his elbows on his knees and links his hand under his chin, throwing a pointed look at Elijah. It's going to be like pulling teeth, isn't it?

Viggo ponders manipulating Pet—would Elijah keep up his sulky teenage tough-guy act if tentacles started softly caressing him all over? Would that bring him to his knees and drive the curiosity out of his mind for another moment, or would he scramble to disentangle himself from the creature, blushing furiously, and try to forge on? The small noise and shift the beast just dispensed have had a noticeable effect on Elijah, even in anger... It's extraordinarily tempting to see what a tenfold version of those would do.

But Viggo decides to wait a bit for that, give Elijah a chance to soften and stop frowning first, if he's willing.

"I'm not a man in black from an unfriendly organization," he says with a smile. "I'm not here to threaten your life, but to enhance it. Can't you recognize a good thing when you see it? If you can get along with It," Viggo points at Elijah's torso, since the Pet and his body occupy the same space, "you can get along with me, too, I'm sure."

*

Viggo sounds, Elijah thinks, a bit like a televangelist.

For a low, one time contribution, Elijah's sure Viggo'd be happy to arrange all sorts of 'life enhancement.'

He hunkers down over the grocery bags as much to conceal the curl of his lip as to sort through what's there.

Everything Elijah needs—even the right brand of malt vinegar, Elijah's secret ingredient—to feed himself (probably for most of the week, considering leftovers), including fresh garlic and two six-packs of Dos Equis. A fucking feast.

There's another bag stuffed with junk food, which Elijah dismisses. Viggo's already helped himself to chips from that bag, so it's likely those items were purchased to his taste, rather than to Elijah's.

But the stir-fry. Well. 'Watching you for a while' seems like a hell of an understatement, considering.

Elijah shoves everything back into the bag and hauls it into the kitchen, steering carefully clear of Viggo's knees.

And "interested" in what, exactly.

But it's obvious that Viggo either isn't yet ready to actually answer questions, or has no intention of ever doing so. Which leaves Elijah in something of a predicament.

He bends and retrieves his only decent piece of cookware—stovetop wok—out of the cupboard, and uses a damp towel to wipe away a layer of dust. He hasn't actually had much to cook in it lately. Pet rides comfortably on Elijah's back, its weight evenly distributed among Elijah's shoulders and waist; it predictably pokes a tentacle under the faucet as it had when Elijah had made coffee earlier, but this time it flicks the water up into Elijah's face. Elijah snorts and bats the offending limb gently away, and it settles around the top of Elijah's thigh.

Whatever Viggo says, Elijah suspects Pet is a hell of a lot easier to get along with.

He rummages in a drawer until he comes up with an apron and loops it around his neck to cover his chest, securing it in the back with a bow. He's sure he looks ridiculous—he thinks he can feel Viggo's eyes on him—but it'll keep his bare chest and Pet both safe from hot spatter.

He doesn't look at Viggo while he chops peppers and seasons raw meat. He has the sneaking suspicion that Viggo is perfectly fine with things just as they are, lack of talking and everything, but he can't figure why. Surely Viggo's chances of learning whatever it is he came here to learn from Elijah are better if they're at least communicating civilly.

Unless.

Viggo has no intention of learning anything from Elijah at all.

The computer, after all, is right there. The files, the whiteboard, the _equation_...

Elijah frowns. None of it makes any sense.

And the skin of his back is practically fucking _crawling_ with Viggo's eyes.

He turns around abruptly, and sees that he isn't wrong.

Viggo returns his regard mildly, unperturbed at being caught staring.

"Let's start from the beginning," Elijah says carefully. "I'm Elijah Wood. I'm a physicist. I'm studying instantaneous physical translocation, in theory and in practice. I'm twenty-three, and I'm living on roughly seven thousand dollars a year. I don't have any friends on any pets, and I only know how to cook maybe six different dishes. And I think you already know all of that."

*

Viggo doesn't admit or deny anything, not that Elijah had really expected him to.

"Your name is Viggo Mortensen," Elijah continues. "You're around forty, plus or minus five years. I'm usually better with people's ages, but your eyes look older than the rest of you, and I can't tell whether to believe your face or your eyes. You drive a van, can get through locked doors without breaking them down, and somehow you know things about me that you shouldn't. Also, you own a pet—or you own _Pet_—that appears to be an uncatalogued species or a genetically engineered specimen."

Viggo's lips have curled up on one side, less a smirk and more an incomplete smile.

"How am I doing so far?" Elijah asks.

"Nothing that's totally off-base," Viggo drawls. "What else you got?"

Elijah shakes his head. "Still working up a hypothesis, ask me again in an hour." He sidles past Viggo and snags a six pack off the carpet, carrying it back into the kitchen.

Viggo tugs a beer from the carrier as Elijah walks past, and when Elijah glances up he sees that Viggo's setting the alarm on his watch. He feels a flash of genuine amusement, and snorts, and Viggo glances up from his watch, maybe a little surprised, and his smile looks pretty genuine as well.

"Yes or no questions?" Elijah asks. "In turns?"

*

"Sure," Viggo says, and he twists open his beer and adds with a cheeky smile, "My turn then, that counts as yours."

Elijah tilts his head, pushes around the beers he put on the counter and lifts his knife again, turning the handle in his hand with a snort. Not that he intends to threaten Viggo with that, not seriously at all. He's simply waiting.

Viggo takes a long pull out of his beer and Elijah turns back to the work at hand, having, he feels, waited enough.

"Will you cook for me too? Yes or no," Viggo asks behind him, unperturbed. "I bought for two, presumably. Tried to."

*

"Yes," Elijah says at once, and doesn't elaborate by adding that his mother would murder him if he did otherwise.

He's not exactly surprised at Viggo's first question. After all, the man knows things, Elijah's already aware of that. He won't need to cover the breadth of information that Elijah will, and thus the things he asks are less likely to be designed to gain an overview type perspective on Elijah. It'll be interesting in and of itself—telling—to see what questions Viggo chooses.

It might give Elijah some idea of exactly how much the man knows already, anyway.

Elijah doesn't have that luxury. He's going to have to balance what he _needs_ to know with the one thousand and one things (most of them about Pet) he _wants_ to know in order to maximize this opportunity. He suspects rather strongly that Viggo won't let the exchange go on long enough for the questions to get too potentially damaging (assuming that there are questions out there that he wouldn't want to answer), so he also needs to try and get as much information as possible with as few questions as feasible.

Compound questions are the way to go, using words that are broad enough to encompass several possible contingencies. At least at first.

He finishes cutting a pepper and sets the knife down to take a beer from the cardboard caddy and twist off the top. He takes a sip, and turns to look at Viggo. He hadn't been lying about being a good judge of ages; he's a pretty good judge of people in general, a side effect of an entire high school and college career of watching them. He's aware that he isn't terribly effective at one on one social interaction, but he thinks he's got a solid chance of catching it if Viggo lies.

"Do you intend any harm whatsoever to me or my work?"

*

Viggo waits a beat, pondering that. The answer is no, quite certainly, but then.. Define harm. Is there anyway Elijah might give the word a wider definition than Viggo? There is. Can it, should it make a difference in his answer? Nope. No way to know what Elijah would put into that category...

If he didn't already classify Pet's presence and influence on him as _harm_ (he could have, but then, now'd be a little late for him to cry wolf, isn't it? Not with Pet crawling all over him earlier and now dozing on his back, not when Viggo can see that the mere contact of the animal soothes Elijah and makes his mouth involuntarily smooth out in a quiet half-smile as he cooks), then Viggo thinks none of what he, personally, would love to see unfold after that can be counted as harm either. As for the research, his interest in it isn't malicious in the least.

"No."

Elijah doesn't have a marked reaction to the answer, just a twitch of his eye in his otherwise calm face, as though this semi-blink merely marks the _write to disk_ command of Elijah committing it to memory, nothing more.

Viggo's seen him do that kind of thing several times, but never this close, never head-on. And of course, it was never directed _at_ him. It feels odd.

"Do you like swimming?"

*

Elijah blinks, considering.

Viggo's expression hasn't changed, nothing but mild curiosity. He tips the bottle of beer up to his lips and swallows without taking his eyes off of Elijah. Elijah sees that Viggo's hands are broad and look a little chapped.

Surely the man doesn't know so much about Elijah that he needn't bother with anything more... relevant than that.

Surely not. There's a tight knot in his belly, though, because (although he can't possibly tell from just one question, of course, it's not scientific in the least to draw conclusions from such a shallow pool of data) he's very much afraid that Viggo _does_. He wants very much to know how Viggo knows what he knows, and spends approximately two minutes attempting to fashion a yes or no question that might address the issue, but it's no use. He doesn't have enough information to be able to even fashion a useful question.

Viggo clears his throat, and Elijah glances up. It occurs to him that he hasn't answered the question, and that he's absently stroking the fingertips of one hand along the material of the apron, exploring the outline of one of Pet's tentacles.

"No," he manages, ignoring his warm cheeks and letting his hand fall to his side. He turns deliberately back toward the counter and resumes work on the stir fry. Then, inexplicably, he adds, "I never learned how. I'm... afraid of deep water."

Then he bites his tongue, abruptly aggravated with himself, and overcompensates by blurting out the first shocking question that pops into his head (regretting it before it's even fully out): "Are you aware that your creature displays every indication of having a sexual appetite?"

*

Viggo chuckles, a flurry of full-throated sounds evolving into an incredulous higher-pitched peal of laughter. Elijah only turns his head to glance at him from the corner of his eyes, even more annoyed, the regret about his choice of question edging into something like fear.

This shouldn't be so funny, and the laughter can only be that Viggo knows, that his answer will be yes, a resounding yes. Frightening prospect, because... What does it mean about the man's motives and intentions?

"Yes," he says indeed, his voice calm again, and Elijah can see light still dancing merrily in his eyes, can see the skin at their corners crinkled by the outburst, the dimple in his cheek not yet smoothed out.

Viggo takes a deep breath followed by more beer, draining the bottle. Now that was unexpected. Sort of. Explaining that it's not a proper sexual appetite for Pet but more of a, er, feeding thing, explaining what Viggo can (what he knows) about the organism and the metabolism of Pet—not an option, at this point. Wouldn't be wise, and it's out of the boundaries of the game. Viggo _likes_ the game.

He tries to decide if he needs another harmless question (like him, harmless, like Pet), one that will puzzle Elijah and bring Viggo some piece of getting-to-know-you information he doesn't have (and wants)... Or if it's time to bluff and ask something he already knows, just so it sounds a little more normal.

That feels a little _too_ sneaky.

Oh, here's one. Yeah, Viggo's wondered about that. Elijah's drive.

"Is there any amount of money—No, wait. Is there anything at all, short of simple survival—say, a gun to your head or whatever—that would make you abandon your research?"

*

"N-" he begins, but the word doesn't even fully emerge before Elijah starts wondering if it's even true. Used to be true, yes. True as little as twenty four hours ago.

His work has always been the most important thing in his life. Always. Even before College, even before _High School_, Elijah had been a scientist.

First chemistry set at seven, first set of encyclopedias the next year for his birthday, first set of control group experiments almost immediately after that, and when he was ten he built a solar powered generator which, as far as he knows, is _still_ being used to power his mom's house, though it had received a substantial systems upgrade when Elijah turned nineteen and made certain (not entirely legal) performance adjustments.

First Place in every science fair ever entered (not as many as you'd think, though, as his interest in being the center of attention waned right around puberty), and so many job offers that he'd stopped opening them after a while.

He still occasionally gets them in the mail, though the ones from the government (three different organizations within) had stopped when they yanked his grant (not because he wasn't making _progress_, but because he refused to share the details of his progress with _them_).

His work has always been the defining reason for his existence, and he feels dizzy and faint all the sudden, and has to curl his hand (sticky with meat juices) around the edge of the counter because his knees feel wobbly and untrustworthy.

Twenty four hours ago, he'd have assured Viggo that even a gun to his head wouldn't be enough to make him abandon it.

_There is nothing good about this obsession with this thing, nothing healthy,_ he tells himself (and in his head he sounds like the therapist his dad had insisted Elijah see when he was fourteen and "failing to develop age-appropriate social skills"), and he would very much like to pretend that knowing that makes the slightest bit of difference.

"Elijah?" Viggo says, and Elijah would have to be deaf or stupid not to hear the concern laced with alarm in the man's voice.

Elijah thinks he should probably be concerned that hearing it comforts him a little, reassures him, because if Viggo is concerned, then probably he isn't dangerous, probably he really doesn't intend Elijah any harm (which isn't the same at all as thinking Viggo's presence won't _cause_ Elijah any harm; quite the contrary, taking into consideration what he's feeling right now, Elijah's certain that enough harm has already been done to change his life forever), maybe he won't steal Elijah's research, and perhaps, when he goes —which he will, everyone eventually gets exasperated with Elijah in the end—he _might_ be convinced to leave something behind.

*

And Elijah just doesn't want to contemplate what he might give, what he might sacrifice, to make that happen.

"Elijah!" Viggo demands this time, and half rises to his feet. Elijah turns to face him (in the way that a person instinctively turns to face a threat every time, instead of the smart thing, which Elijah knows is usually to run, not that knowing that is helping him implement it), hands out in a warding gesture.

"FINE," he shouts, and then manages to modulate his voice to something more reasonable (not to mention believable), and repeats, "I'm fine, it's fine, please don't touch me."

He only realizes how insulting a thing to say it is when Viggo recoils, dropping back onto the stool like his ass is a lead weight, the vaguest hint of something reproachful flickering in his strange eyes and thinning his lips.

"I-" Elijah says, and then stops, because he doesn't want to apologize to Viggo, has no obligation to under the circumstances, and turns back toward the counter, head tipped so far down that his chin nearly touches his chest. "I don't know the answer to that question," he says instead of apologizing, and picks up the knife, mechanically returning to chopping, though nothing really needs more chopping.

Viggo doesn't say anything, and fully three minutes pass in silence. Elijah's has begun tossing things into the wok by the time he realizes it's his turn to ask a question.

It takes him another two minutes of struggling to condense extremely complicated questions into something that can feasibly answered with a yes or no, and in the end, all he can come up with is a staggeringly stupid, "Did you ask that question because you want me to abandon my research for some reason?"

*

"No."

Viggo's tired of the game now, and it takes him some effort to not elaborate on that, provide detailed reassurance. Of course Elijah doesn't trust him totally yet, he wanted it that way. But just a little, no like this... There should be an underlying coat of trust that's enough for Elijah to know he's not _truly_ in danger. If Viggo wanted the research to stop all he'd have to do is wait for the day Elijah's meager reserves of cash would dry out, soon.

That there _isn't_ is irritating in a way Viggo doesn't even want to consider.

He leaves the kitchen area to go get a cigarette from the pack he brought for Elijah yesterday, lights it up and takes a huge noisy drag. Viggo doesn't smoke very often—it's hard to be a social smoker when you're not social to begin with, and he's had his fair share of experiences with all sorts of drugs, which made him basically wary of all of them—but sometimes nicotine is exactly the rush he needs, like now.

Elijah goes on stirring and tossing food in the wok, the mixed juices of meat and vegetable and the flavors of spices rising and spreading in the small apartment and competing with the fragrant smoke Viggo releases in the air, pacing restlessly.

Pet must be asleep now (Viggo's noticed a while ago how it's not a problem for the animal to stay curled tightly in the same position even as it sleeps); the sensation of having Elijah's body fitted between his limbs has faded in the past five minutes to finally vanish completely. Another frustration: as Elijah's reluctance to the mere physical presence of Viggo became so violently manifest, Viggo would've liked to be able to hang on to that vicarious feeling to soothe the wounded prickling.

That Pet fell sleep after Elijah's outburst might have a deep significance, even, maybe a precise reason.. To punish Viggo that way, or to take itself out of the equation? Perhaps it's like a little kid hating fights between its parents. Or it's just a dumb animal and Viggo's reading too much into it.

"I pass," Viggo eventually sighs, stepping back in the kitchen bit and dropping his cigarette butt in the ashtray.

Tension has receded, folded into the back of his neck and the muscles of his shoulders, reduced to a shimmer of headache; lassitude fills the void it left right behind Viggo's forehead, behind his eyelids as he closes his eyes, his back to Elijah. He had it good with the window, observing from afar. His hand twitches unconsciously for the feel of the transmitter, the clicky knob turning by increments, the place where his hold worn the hard plastic smooth over time.

*

Elijah has always known that he doesn't deal all that well with other people, even before the therapist. It got worse after that, though, after the questions about what he thought of other people (_"Do you know what a sociopath is, Elijah?_), about his parent, about Hannah and Zach, about his schoolmates and his teachers. Knowing became a kind of prickling, jagged, ever-present awareness that he is bound to fuck up, and it's obvious that's exactly what he's doing.

Viggo's back is a straight, tense line, and he has every right to be offended.

Not that Elijah doesn't have the right to question him; he believes firmly that he _does_, that it would be foolish not to. But it's one thing to be uncertain of a person's motives, and another to be rude.

With the guilt, uncertainty comes back, and he doesn't know what to do. There's also the nagging, unworthy fear that Viggo will get sick of Elijah's shit, and when he leaves, he'll take Pet with him. Elijah can't help being a little ashamed of himself that the possibility of that is more motivation for some kind of peace offering than anything else, but there it is.

He chews on his bottom lip and tosses the contents of the wok expertly, adding a splash of soy sauce and a couple of pinches of red pepper when it smells right. He likes to cook, and if he ever had any money, he'd probably buy a cookbook and learn to cook some more things. But stir fry is cheap and fast, and Elijah loves spicy foods.

He wonders if it'll be too spicy for Viggo, and frowns at not having asked before adding the pepper.

Well. Nothing he can do about it now.

He divides the contents of the wok onto two blue plastic plates, and digs around in the kitchen drawer until he finds a couple of forks. One's a salad fork, so he takes that and puts the real fork with Viggo's plate, juggling them slightly so that he can grab his beer, too.

"Viggo?" Elijah says, and it occurs to him for the first time that it's a strange name, interesting. He makes a mental note to look it up online later and find out the origin, see what it means.

Viggo turns slightly, and his mouth is still faintly tense, but his eyes don't look quite as cool.

Elijah's mouth goes dry, and for a minute he fumbles something, stammers a few disconnected syllables with no real meaning, and finally latches on to the yes or no question session, and manages, "D-do you l-like spicy food?"

*

Viggo nods and shakes tension out of his shoulders.

"Yeah," he says, "spicy food's good, I like Mexican a lot."

With his foot he shoves his stool gently across the kitchen linoleum to Elijah, and goes to grab the second one from its spot in front of the computer. Where Elijah used it last because Pet on his back stopped him from sitting on his desk chair, but Viggo's purposefully avoiding to think about that, about how strangely normal Elijah looks with the animal slung all over him and sleeping quietly while Elijah goes about his business. Viggo doesn't think either about the steady little fire the sight fuels in his belly, and he brings the stool back in the kitchen and sits on it quietly, takes up his fork to fig enthusiastically in the stir-fry.

"It does, too," Viggo jerks his thumb in the vague direction of Pet and takes a forkful of food. "Like spicy food, I mean. It likes it on skin."

And he stuffs the food in his mouth and starts chewing enthusiastically.

*

_It likes it on..._

Elijah pauses in the act of putting his own plate down on the bar, peripherally aware that the plate is tilted slightly, and that the contents are very slowly sliding toward the tabletop, but so caught up it the brilliant flashbulb of understanding that sacrificing his lunch seems a small price to pay.

He turns his face toward his own shoulder where several of the creatures tentacles lay heavy and solid against his skin, and inhales deeply, smells the spice and the underlying sweetness that is new, since just this morning.

Viggo reaches across the table and takes Elijah's plate and puts it down, but he doesn't say anything, doesn't interrupt Elijah's train of thought, and Elijah wonders distantly if it's because he's polite, or if it's because Viggo _knows_ better, if he really knows so much about Elijah that he understands not to bother trying to talk to Elijah right now.

But the vague curiosity escapes him, overwhelmed by his considerably more burning interest in _it_, Viggo's creature, which he calls 'The Pet' and 'Pet' pretty much interchangeably, which doesn't breathe as far as Elijah can tell, and which has nothing that Elijah could locate that might be considered a dermal opening, either for intake of nutrients or excretion.

_Because it absorbs nutrients through its skin,_ Elijah thinks, and he's fairly sure that's right, but three swabs under the 'scope tell Elijah it doesn't excrete the same way, and suddenly Elijah very much wants to look at Pet under magnification.

He remembers the ripple of muscle as Pet settled onto his hand, and more vividly (and heat floods his face even as his dick twitches at the memory) the feel of it splayed upon his belly, the slow, tidal pulse of its muscles as Elijah came down, and it hadn't even occurred to him when he woke this morning that he hadn't been sticky.

_High protein content,_ Elijah's brain notes, _not to mention a high caloric content, lots of good stuff, stuff it would need, but not a lot of excess either, the perfect nutrient really, it makes sense,_ and it does, intellectually, it makes perfect sense, but Elijah still sits down rather abruptly, not quite managing to land squarely on the stool, so that for a moment it tips crazily, and he's sure he's going over. He sees Viggo, up on his feet an leaning across the surface of the bar, but it's going to be too late, Elijah can tell, though he appreciates the gesture.

*

He doesn't fall, though, because several of the big appendages looped over Elijah's shoulder unwind like Chinese yo-yo's, unimaginably fast and Elijah feels the coils of Pet's anatomy shift and tensing, changing, and he is suddenly being supported, cradled, all along his right side. The tipping stops in mid-arc, and for a moment Elijah sort of hangs there, body at a forty-five degree angle from the floor.

Crazily, Elijah remembers reading something about how some scientists had found marks on a sixty foot sperm whale that they insisted could _only_ come from the tentacles of a giant squid, and he wonders how fucking _strong_ a squid would have to be to scar up a goddamn _whale_.

He glances over—he isn't afraid of falling, oddly enough, he's just curious—and sees that several of Pet's tentacles are wrapped around the edge of the bar, the edge of the kitchen counter, and two are wrapped around Viggo's forearm, which he's holding upright, elbow locked and fist clenched. Elijah can see the muscle in Viggo's farm quivering tautly.

It can't be more than two seconds, though it feels longer, and then Elijah's being pulled upright, tipping past the point where he'd lost his balance. He looks down when he feels the stool shift under his ass, and sees a couple of tentacles scooting it into position.

Then he's sitting on his stool like nothing happened. He is still holding his beer, he realizes, and blinks at it dumbly. Pet lets go of bar and counter and _Viggo_, and settles itself back around Elijah's shoulders.

Viggo looks at Elijah for a moment. He isn't smiling, but for some reason Elijah is sure he wants to. Then Viggo goes back to eating like nothing happened.

Elijah has no idea what to say, so he pretends nothing happened too, and goes back to thinking about the way Pet eats, and the sharp, almost dissonant idea that it had to have eaten before it met Elijah. Which would mean, of course, that...

"How exactly..." Elijah blurts, and then ponders the idea of whamming his face down on the top of the bar. Viggo's eyes flicker up from his plate, both brows arched upward. "I mean, do you...?"

*

It takes a few seconds for Viggo to make any kind of sense of the question. He's still internally shaking from the incident, his heart beating a little too strong and a little too fast, trying to understand and trying not to show it. Semi-hysterical laughter is probably not what Elijah needs to hear at this time.

Viggo hadn't been aware at all that he'd projected his mad scrambling tentative to stop Elijah from falling along the connection with Pet—which was asleep, anyway. That he did, the impulse from his brain broadcast strongly enough to wake It up, is huge; that Pet reacted this fast to an involuntary tugging and left Viggo with immediate and cooperative control of its limbs is quite—impressive, unsettling. Good to know, certainly.

And then Elijah asked something, and Viggo has had to rewind the last few seconds and think hard to make sense of it, because his first spontaneous understanding of it is that the question has to do with the near-fall, but it doesn't make sense with Elijah's words.

_Oh_, feeding Pet.

"I do," Viggo says, extremely aware now of Pet's hold on Elijah's chest, a tingling in his arms and legs that he tries to ignore as Elijah shifts on the stool. "There's a form of, uhm, imprinting that takes place, with a creature like that. And I couldn't let it starve, anyway, it might've died before I made it here."

Even as Viggo says it he realizes he's not sure of that, though, not sure what happens to this species when they don't form the bonds they're designed to form with human masters. And he let slip maybe more than he should have... Must be the shock of this impromptu multi-hands athletic save, he's not quite recovered from that yet.

Viggo looks down to his plate and starts eating again, exhilarated still but more than a little nervous.

*

For several seconds, Elijah says nothing. He picks up his fork for something to do with at least one of his hands, and stares at his plate.

He's thinking too hard to actually eat—he'd probably stab his lip with his fork if he tried, God knows he's done it before, once hard enough to send the time of a rather vicious shrimp fork all the way through his bottom lip, much to his mother's disgust. He taps the edge of the fork against the plastic plate and chews at his bottom lip, ordering bits of information in his mind as well as he can, with all the gaps in his knowledge-base.

"Things he _knows_" is a distressingly short category, far outstripped by both "Things he _thinks_" and "Things he _wonders_." Moving _empathetic behavior_ from "thinks" to "knows" doesn't really balance it out much, as now _Viggo's motivations_ has moved from "wonders" to "thinks"—or at least in some small respect they had.

_"...it might have died before I made it here._

Such a phrase suggests two things immediately.

The first is that Viggo came from either a large distance or via and unsafe path.

The second is that Viggo had obtained pet at some point en route to Elijah. Perhaps getting Pet had marked the beginning of the journey, perhaps it had happened sometime along the way; either way, it seems to indicated that Viggo's feet had already been on the path to Elijah's door when Pet had come into his possession (if that's even the right word, which Elijah highly doubts if the creature is as empathetic as his experience with it seems to suggest).

Which begs a question.

He glances up at Viggo, stilling the hand that's still tapping with his fork. Viggo, a bite raised halfway to his lips, looks up as soon as the tapping stops, his pale eyes meeting Elijah's gaze fearlessly. Elijah shivers—Viggo's gaze has weight, somehow, is heavy with experience, perhaps—but doesn't look away.

Pet shifts its weight on Elijah's back, several of the large tentacles anchoring it tightening slightly, and the tip of one of its slenderest limbs tickles the hinge of Elijah's jaw. Viggo's eyes are drawn to the movement for just a moment.

_Yes,_ Elijah thinks, feeling calm, feeling almost distant from this moment. _It practically screams a question, in fact._ He isn't sure what answer he wants to hear from Viggo; he isn't even sure he cares which it is.

He just wants to know what Viggo will say.

"Which one of us did you find for the other?" he asks, and almost doesn't recognize his own voice, it's so low and intent.

*

Viggo's face splits open with a sudden smile and his fork waves a bit in the air between them.

"Funny you should ask."

He takes the time to finish swallowing his (already chewed) mouthful, clear gaze wandering over Elijah's face and chest, following the winding path of a delicately colored tentacle under his arm.

"I tracked it down first," he says finally, with a low voice, sounding lazy. "I thought you'd appreciate It."

*

"You..." Elijah begins, but his voice doesn't seem to be able to carry out the entire sentence he'd had in mind. Not that he's even sure what that sentence was going to be.

He looks down quickly, even though Viggo isn't actually looking into his face right now. Viggo's attention is fixed firmly on Elijah's chest, on Pet, or at least that's what it looks like, but Elijah doesn't want him looking upward suddenly. It would feel like being _caught_.

Caught doing what, he isn't sure, but he still doesn't want to feel that way. He can feel his cheeks burning as it is, the suspicion that Viggo knows certain... _things_ turned to certainty, and that's bad enough without feeling caught on top of it.

Pet's long, sleek limbs ripple, just a moment of pressure, like a quick hug, and Elijah wonders how much it understands, what it's level of mentation really is. Is it empathy guiding it, or intellect? Or is it something else?

He sneaks a quick glance at Viggo through his lashes, but Viggo's expression is still as it ever was, still and inscrutable, though his lips are faintly curled into a near-smile.

"Why?" Elijah asks, and his voice half-cracks on the word. Without meaning to, he reaches up and curls a hand around one of Pet's larger limbs, which twists slightly and curls right back. And it isn't in him to wish he hadn't done it, though he knows it's the kind of gesture that's hard to interpret as anything other than what it was, a need for support, for comfort. He doesn't want to display these things, but he doesn't know how not to, and there is some part of him—the part that is divorced from the scientist, the part that has never been logical or methodical or calm—that doesn't care what the hell he's showing, doesn't see why it's even a concern, because surely, surely, it's worth it.

Surely this _gift_ is worth everything.

*


	3. Apparently, Size Matters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Size... well, really does matter. For reals.

It's bigger.

Elijah isn't surprised, precisely. He'd observed the results of "feeding" it, after all.

But the thing is. Well.

He hasn't fed it. Not today. Not since Viggo had vanished last night. And not only because he had started to feel like Pet was a delicious trap, an impossible to resist lure. Because when it comes right down to it, it's too late for Elijah. Too late not to be lured, and he does his best not to think about this morning, directly after the unsatisfactory conclusion to the "game" with Viggo, in which both of them had said more than they wanted, but somehow nothing at all, really. Stupid to think about that now, anyhow, stupid to think about the warm strength of Pet winding all around him, and he should have fucking known better. Should have known Viggo wouldn't be in the shower for long.

Viggo is frying something on the stovetop, and the apartment is redolent with the savory smell of what Elijah suspects strongly is fried chicken. He barely glances up when Elijah comes in, a mere flicker of his gaze, and then returns his attention to his cooking.

Pet is sprawled at his feet, an improbable spread of softly gleaming, earth-tone limbs, and there are bits of it spread all across the kitchen floor. The kitchen isn't exactly huge, but Elijah is sure, he is _sure_ that when he finally left to go to the lab sometime before noon (hours and hours later than he'd ever left the apartment at any point in the past), Pet would not have been able to reach wall to wall like that.

It's bigger.

It _must_ have been fed.

It's nearly big enough to…

Elijah forces himself through the door, an inelegant lurch of motion, as his mind shies away from thoughts of what Pet may or may not be big enough to do, away from who has been feeding it, if not Elijah.

He drops the battered satchel that contains his notes -- he hadn't need them to go to work, not really, but he hadn't been willing to leave them here with Viggo, either -- by the couch and toes off his trainers without thought, force of habit. In the kitchen, Viggo cooks and Pet nudges at his ankle with one of its larger tentacles, and then slides it up the cuff of Viggo's jeans (Viggo's feet are bare, Elijah sees, and surprisingly shapely, with long, pale toes; the arch of his foot has nearly perfect curvature, the sort of thing you see in the loveliest of geometric equations). Viggo appears not to notice or care.

"What…" Elijah says, and shrugs absently out of his jacket, a ratty old tan sport coat-like thing he'd found at a thrift shop years ago, slinging it across the arm of the couch. "What have you been doing?"

Viggo looks at Elijah blandly. His eyes are pale and empty, and Elijah decides that whoever said the eyes were windows to the soul never met Viggo. Or, perhaps, Viggo _has_ no soul.

At this point, Elijah wouldn't be surprised.

"Cooking chicken," Viggo says, and Elijah resists the urge to roll his eyes. He's sure Viggo knows _exactly_ what Elijah's talking about.

Viggo's hair is damp, and Elijah notices he isn't wearing a shirt. He's not sure how he'd managed to miss that when he first came in, and he feels his face heat up, not quite able to _not_ look at Viggo's broad, bare chest, dusted with hair the color of ginger, the color of several of Pet's limbs, in fact. Lower, the sparse hair on his belly is sprinkled with grey strands. When he finally manages to tug his gaze away, he sees that Viggo is still looking at him, and is smiling faintly, a lopsided expression that makes the corners of his eyes crinkle up slightly.

"Um," Elijah says, and is totally at a loss for something to do, even though it's _his_ apartment, and he's pretty sure he has some sort of end of the day ritual that he normally follows. But that doesn't include coming home to someone else in his apartment cooking, and it certainly doesn't include a tentacle-creature, and in light of that he just doesn't know what to do. He chews at his bottom lip and stares down at his own feet while he tries to decide; his sock has a hole in it, he sees. He can see the last two toes on his right foot.

"So," Viggo says, and Elijah darts his gaze up long enough to see that Viggo has turned back to his chicken, "did you get any work done?"

"Um," Elijah says, because of course he didn't. He did some minor calibrations, he ran a couple of tests, he used the Afix graphics system to give the metaphysical structure of the bridge a once over, but none of that was really necessary or useful. Mostly what he did was plug Viggo's name into every database at his disposal (and several that he wasn't, strictly speaking, supposed to have access to), coming up with the same thing again and again. Which is to say, not a fucking thing. Viggo is a phantom. "Yeah. Some," he lies nervously, and doesn't look at Viggo, beyond certain that the man can hear the lie. "Not as much as I'd have liked," he adds, and tells himself it isn't because he feels guilty for lying.

Viggo just nods absently, like he doesn't really give a shit about the answer, is just making idle conversation, which Elijah thinks is a little weird. From the last twenty-four hours or so, Elijah's wouldn't have bet on Viggo being all that interested in idle conversation. "This will be done in ten minutes or so," Viggo says, and throws Elijah a quick look that reveals nothing. "If you want to take a shower or something, it'll be ready when you're done."

Since he isn't sure what else to do, Elijah does.

\--

There's shampoo in the little nook set into the shower wall where there wasn't any shampoo before. Elijah debates for less than ten seconds before deciding that anything Viggo leaves in his shower is fair fucking game.

It smells like greenery, like heather and herbs, and it's probably ridiculous to take this much sheer pleasure from shampooing his hair, but Elijah doesn't give a shit. Fuck, he's missed shampoo.

He's ten minutes into his shower when it occurs to him to wonder when the hot water is going to run out. He frowns, mentally calculating the degree to which he adjusted the temperature, and yeah, he's sure of it. He didn't have to spin the knob all the way to the left to get heat. He leans forward and nudges the knob to the left, and the water -- already comfortably warm -- is almost instantly downright _hot_. Elijah squeaks and nudges it back, and then straightens and just stands there.

The water pressure is good, and the hot water shows no signs of abating. Did they fix the hot water heater? Install a new one? What the hell?

He debates getting out -- thinking it might not be a good idea to press his luck -- and then can't quite make himself do it. It's been fucking ages since he had a real hot shower, something that consisted of more than just jumping in, soaping up, rinsing off, and jumping out before he was frozen solid. And who the hell knows, it might never happen again.

So instead of getting out, he nudges the water warmer just a tiny bit, and gives in to the urge to shampoo his hair a second time, which leads sort of naturally to deciding to use the shampoo on the rest of him as well, since it smells way better than the bar of soap, and that, rather predictably, he supposes, leads to Elijah wrapping a slickly warm hand around his dick, because the fact is, his mind hasn't strayed far from the creature currently in his kitchen since he first laid eyes on it.

He lets his mind go to the size of it, finally, lets himself consider what things might be possible, wonders absently if its strength has increased to the same degree as its size, because it had been strong already, it had been _strong_, and if its physical strength is consistent, if it is on scale with its current size, then…

A little moan hisses out between his lips, and he braces his left hand against the wall and spreads his legs as much as the narrow shower will allow, closing his eyes and catching his lower lip between his teeth to keep any more damning sounds from spilling out.

When he hears the door creak open, he snaps upright, hand falling away from his dick to curl into a fist, which he then tucks behind him, curled into the small of his back, as though to conceal the evidence. He flushes dully, angry with himself, and forces his hand down to his side before tweaking the shower curtain to the side to peer cautiously around it.

He has no idea whether he should be surprised or not, so he just watches Pet undulate slowly into the room, watches it shut the door softly behind it. Watches it use two of its smaller limbs to deftly engage the little locking mechanism built into the handle by applying equal but opposite pressure to top and bottom, so that it snicks into place.

The sound of it is tiny, almost negligible.

It sets up a huge, overwhelming barrage in Elijah brain, however, and he can't tell if it's something like terror or something closer to exultation that he's feeling, because it's sentient, it _has_ to be, not just sentient but _intelligent_, capable of seeing a thing and reasoning out its purpose, and he wants to think about that, he really really does, but then it is sliding up and over the lip of the bathtub, and its touch -- just Elijah's feet and ankles, but -- sends his mind away in the wash of needful heat that blossoms in his midsection.

"Oh, God," he whimpers, and it coils around his calves for a moment, sending a couple of tentacles upward to stroke along his belly, as though it's pausing, as though it wants to give Elijah the chance to make a break for it, and speaking right now is beyond him so he just nods dumbly, hopefully, and that seems to be enough. It coils upward, climbing him with deliberate and sinuous contractions of muscle, and Elijah hisses helplessly because it feels like Pet is several degrees warmer than the water; it feels like being wrapped in the world's friendliest electric blanket. As it moves upward it drags itself over Elijah's naked skin, over his thighs and his dick and his belly, and Elijah shudders, his hands clenching empty at his sides for a few seconds, and then moving up of their own volition, bracing against the shower wall, because he won't need them, God, he won't need them, because Pet is already winding itself around all the parts of Elijah that Elijah would use his hands on. His hands are superfluous, useless, unnecessary. He lets his chin drop downward as his neck goes loose, a reaction to the slow, warm stricture, the almost frictionless pleasure of being surrounded -- and he's been waiting for this, he understands, on some level he's been waiting all fucking day, because there are no degrees, no stages of arousal, just a running jump into bright white lust, like the trap door of his own desire has been there every second, waiting for him to take that one last step to fall through it -- but he doesn't close his eyes like he would if he were using his hands, because, God, because _seeing_ it is fucking amazing, perfect, absolutely necessary, the smooth, pale expanse of his own skin wound around with its sleek limbs. "God," he gulps, strangled and strengthless, nearly inaudible underneath the sound of the shower, and Pet chirrups a little sound that Elijah _feels_, he feels it as vibration, as a fast-strong _clench_ of the entirety of its body. Elijah shudders, and there is some sort of desperate pressure in his throat for long seconds, something… he has no idea what… swells there, a sob or a cry, and he couldn't be more surprised when it turns out to be words, a gasping, blatantly pleading litany, "oh godjesus, please, god, please yes please…" and he isn't even faintly surprised at the thick, warm press of one of its limbs into his mouth, he is only helplessly, desperately satisfied by it.

Perhaps it senses his impatience, the desire that feels like necessity spiraling just below his navel, or perhaps it has needs of its own. Elijah can't bring himself to care why. Its motivations are the furthest thing from his mind, excepting, possibly, his own motivations, and he doesn't feel anything but gratitude when it doesn't pause, doesn't bother with slow, just winds a tentacle around his dick, base to tip, and _squeezes_. Elijah shouts, but it's muffled, warped into nearly nothing by the pulsing warmth in his mouth, spicy again, most of that sweetness he'd noted before gone, but still good, fucking _wonderful_.

Pet shifts, a quick and supple flex of tentacles, and Elijah shudders heatedly, suddenly dizzy and too-hot, but unwilling to do anything about it, unwilling to stop or move or otherwise interrupt Pet, not when it's all fucking over him, a thick length of tentacle around his left thigh, several around his waist, his arms and his throat, and as Elijah shudders and shivers, a smaller, thinner limb slides between his thighs, and curls gently around his nuts. He moans, and the strength leaves his legs at the same moment; he falls to his knees, his hands slipping uselessly down the wet shower wall.

His knees never hit, though, there is no sickening distraction of pain, just the feel of being momentarily suspended, being supported, and then set down, and for some reason, God, he doesn't know why, but, God, that is _so_ good, so fucking good, and his back arches, his hips rock forward, and he would have come, could have, but the tentacle around his nuts goes tight, not painful but snug and restrictive, and Elijah shudders and gulps, swallows around what's in his mouth -- it quivers, it responds, but Elijah can't think enough to decide what to do about that -- but doesn't come, just shudders and bucks a little and then settles to the feel of Pet's myriad limbs stroking softly, soothing, along his back and upper arms -- now that he isn't using his hands to support himself, Pet is coiling around his wrists, drawing them upward and forward and together, which suggests the ability to reason deductively, the understanding that Elijah doesn't need them and thus it can _do_ things to them, but he barely heeds that thought as it rockets across the surface of his mind, is too taken with the way it feels. The tentacle wound around his dick is warm and tight and _there_ but not moving. He can hear his breath coming harshly through his nose, and the big muscles in his thighs are shuddering, but he's okay, he's all right, and Pet wriggles slightly, as if letting Elijah know it's getting ready to start again when somewhere else in the apartment (the kitchen, Elijah supposes) there is an immense crash of sound.

Pet goes still, and several tentacles unwrap themselves from around Elijah to quiver alertly, upright, obvious hesitation.

_Viggo_, Elijah thinks, and it's probably nothing, maybe he dropped something, or maybe he's just one of those people that's needlessly fucking loud, but everything Elijah owns is out there, and there's something about Viggo, something about the way he looks, with his calm and shuttered eyes that are nevertheless wreathed with what looks like exhaustion, and the thing that worries Elijah, the thing that concerns him, has very little to do with Viggo himself.

Maybe it makes him a shitty person, and maybe not, but Viggo looks like the kind of guy that might be on the run, and if he is, and if whatever is chasing him catches up to him while he's here, then everything Elijah has is in danger. And his work, yeah, and his life, yeah, but neither of those cause the blossom of fearful dread in his belly.

Pet.

If something happens to Viggo, what happens to Pet? Elijah isn't clear on exactly what exists between Viggo and the creature, a kind of _imprinting_, Viggo had said, but he understands that it's something that goes beyond mere ownership. A creature like Pet is too complicated to be easily owned, and if something happens to Viggo, what happens to Pet?

Elijah doesn't know, and he doesn't want to find out.

He isn't brave.

Elijah has never been brave -- not even brave enough for the high dive when he was a kid, never brave enough for soap box derby or contact sports or even skateboarding, for God's sake -- but he somehow manages to extricate himself from the most restrictive curls of Pets limbs, and a moment later finds himself standing on the shabby old towel he uses for a bathmat, shoving his glasses onto his face blindly. He finds himself twisting the towel from the bar -- it's slightly damp, he guesses Viggo used it for _his_ shower -- around his hips and flicking the lock on the doorknob that Pet had so easily manipulated. He doesn't have a weapon, and he has no idea what he'll do if there is some kind of danger, but he supports the bulk of Pet's central mass with one arm and uses his other hand to hold the towel, and he goes, Pet still wound around him in various places.

It's warm in the apartment -- Elijah has no control over the temperature, there's a central thermostat that the landlord presumably sets -- just like always, but he's wet and scared, and the air raises goosebumps on his damp skin almost immediately. It's quiet now, and Elijah pauses just inside the living room, looking for something, he doesn't know, something out of place or just wrong, but everything looks to be as he left it. There's no sound at all from the kitchen.

Pet winds itself more firmly around Elijah -- it's heavier, too, and if Elijah hadn't believed his eyes, he'd certainly have believed this, after carrying it around all morning like a backpack -- limbs warm and comfortable, comforting. A thick tentacle winds its way around his arm and down to the hand holding his towel in place. Pet seems calm. That quivering hesitation, the alertness it had seemed to exhibit, is gone.

_It's probably fine,_ Elijah thinks, _I should at least go turn the shower off,_ but he doesn't. He takes a step and then another, and then he's standing in the open area that connects living room to kitchen.

It's a mess.

Viggo is crouched in front of the open door of the refrigerator, a small avalanche of soda cans, condiment jars, a couple of beer bottles, and the plastic storage container containing leftover stir-fry surrounding his feet. The lowest shelf, a wire rack that fits into grooves on the insides of the fridge, is half out and tilted oddly so that one corner is resting on the faded linoleum of the kitchen floor.

Elijah has no idea what to think.

As he stands there and considers it, Viggo turns his head and looks at Elijah. His eyes are the same as always, pale and intent, but he looks a little flushed and harried, his hair disordered, as though he's been running his hands through it.

"It's fine," he says, and his eyes flicker to Pet for a moment, and then down to the towel that barely circles Elijah's waist, and then back to Elijah's face. "I'll clean it up. I didn't mean to interrupt…" His eyes flicker to Pet again. "…your shower."

Elijah shivers guiltily, and rolls one shoulder in a shrug. "It was just loud," he says, and has no idea why he feels like he needs to explain himself. "I thought…" He glances at the door, and sees that he'd neglected to lock any of the three locks. He takes the steps necessary to close the distance between himself and the door, and twists all three locks, top to bottom. He doesn't know how to say what he thought, so he doesn't say anything else. Besides, now that he's sure Viggo isn't being attacked and killed, getting back into the shower seems like an urgent requirement. Pet, as if agreeing, undulates a little, the warm flex and ripple of musculature against his skin making Elijah bite his lip to keep back a gasp. His hard-on, which hadn't ever wilted away entirely, twitches and resumes its place at the top of Elijah's "to do" list. He feels a sleek, powerful limb winding its way around his middle, feels the tip of it stoking across his lower back. "I… I…" he stammers, with some intention of announcing that he's returning to his shower, but he can't quite get the words to resolve into separate syllable, recognizable configurations, so he takes a step back, pivots on one foot, and runs into the edge of the fold-out bed with both knees.

Elijah's never been what anyone would call graceful, and while it's been an occasional point of annoyance for him, it had never been much of a concern. He's immune from his own clumsiness in the lab, has never spilled or fallen on or otherwise damaged anything _important_, so it's never been awful, really, to be just a little bit clumsy.

This time, though, hyperaware of Viggo looking at him, when he steps again, bright lines of what will probably be bruising pain blazing across both knees, realizes that he has stepped badly, that the feel of his heel coming down on his carelessly discarded trainer means that he's going to go down, the wash of embarrassment that floods his face with heat is almost painful.

"Shit!" he yelps, ridiculously high-pitched, and he's horrified and humiliated in those slivers of an instant, but he's also worried, afraid, and it doesn't occur to him that Pet doesn't have any bones to break, that it's both faster and more coordinated than Elijah could ever hope to be, that it's probably perfectly safe. There is just an abrupt surge of fear-induced adrenaline, and he curls one arm protectively around the place where all of its limbs join (the place where its vital organs are probably located), and twists himself sideways in an attempt to redirect the path of his own momentum, to keep from falling on the edge of the couch-bed where the metal of the frame might do some damage, might sever a tentacle (God forbid) or something equally awful.

And, even though Pet has pulled off miraculous recoveries in regards to Elijah's clumsiness _twice in one day_, Elijah still yells with surprise when he feels himself lifted -- not merely supported or propped up, but actually fucking _lifted_ \-- off his feet, an abrupt and vertigo-inducing sway of motion that sends the world shifting perilously in his vision. His empty hand -- one is still incongruously filled with the bulk of Pet's body -- gropes madly for something to latch onto, and a thick, earth colored limb winds it's way from Elijah's shoulder to hand, filling it, giving him something to grasp.

For a moment, he is suspended there.

Viggo is forgotten. Falling is forgotten. The towel that is no longer wrapped around his waist is a very distant thought.

He is suspended, and he can feel the wiry ripple of Pet's taut muscles under its silky soft skin, he can feel it in a dozen places, two dozen, up his legs and arms, around his waist, coiled beneath his back like improbable springs. He is suspended and more or less immobile, and he tips his head to one side to look down and take in the configuration of limbs that makes it possible, sees the thickest of Pet's tentacles -- as big around as Elijah's calves -- beneath him, bearing him up, smaller ones braced against the back and arms of the couch, curled around the metal frame of the bed for stability and to equalize the distribution of Elijah's weight, and it is _beautiful_, it's gorgeous and evocative in the same way the not-quite real expanse of the bridge is fucking gorgeous, but this is more, this is _better_, this is visceral and heated, and Elijah lets his eyes flutter closed, relaxes and lets himself be held.

It lowers him, eventually -- Elijah can feel the quiver of strain in Pet's limbs, and suspects that, while it is big enough, strong enough to hold him like this, it isn't quite strong enough to maintain it for any length of time -- carefully and gently depositing him onto the mattress. He wonders how much more, how many more times it would need to feed before that is no longer true, and heat floods his face helplessly, not just due to the thought, but to the deep clench of heat in his belly that results, the anticipatory quiver at the idea of both feeding it, and then reaping the rewards of feeding it. His dick twitches against his belly, bringing his attention back to it in a furious rush, and he blinks his eyes open and glances hurriedly toward the kitchen.

Viggo is standing there, watching, impassive, and Elijah's face feels like it's on fire. "You all right?" is all he says, however. When Elijah nods, absolutely mute with mortification, Viggo just nods back and turns away. After a moment, Elijah hears him clinking bottles and jars around, presumably cleaning up the mess in front of the refrigerator.

Elijah wedges one elbow beneath him, intending to get himself and Pet back into the bathroom as quickly as possible, back into the shower where things had been warm and safe and _private_, but Pet snakes a tentacle around his wrist and jerks it out from under him, a whiplash twitch of strength, and Elijah finds himself on his back again, blinking with surprise.

The bulk of Pet's body, which had been resting on his belly, one of Elijah's arms still curled protectively around it, presses down, out of Elijah's grasp and pretty much directly onto Elijah's dick. Elijah's hips buck upward of their own accord, pressing into that densely smooth expanse of warm skin, and it feels so good, so blindingly good, that Elijah almost doesn't notice the deft manipulation of his own limbs, still tangled up as they are, wreathed around with Pet's. One moment he is in a rather uncoordinated sprawl, and in the next he's been spread neatly with the barest shifts of movement from Pet, a twitch here and a slight contraction there.

"Pet," he whispers, his voice hoarse and not-quite steady as several of it's limbs splay across his belly, slithering up his chest, brushing lightly against the thin skin over his ribs and his shiveringly erect nipples. "Don't."

Either it ignores him, or doesn't understand. The flesh of its underbelly ripples against Elijah's dick, and Elijah hisses, torn between absolute arousal and nervous embarrassment, shooting another quick glance toward the kitchen. He barely gets his head turned, though, before Pet slides a tentacle up to curve along the side of his face, tipping his head back, lifting his glasses off and away. Heat twists in Elijah's belly, and Pet croons, the same tentacle winding its way around his throat like a collar, two and then three twists that force Elijah's chin up and limits his vision to a narrow slice of water spotted ceiling just where it joins the slightly yellowed wall.

The question of how it knows (how the hell does it _know_?) what will drive Elijah past the point of propriety and reason, flitters across Elijah's mind. _Pheromones,_ he thinks, _it must be able to taste them,_ which makes sense, yeah, if it absorbs nutrients through its skin, and with as much skin to skin contact currently maintained, there might be other things as well. Elijah's heart rate, maybe, muscle tension and the firing of certain bundles of nerves, if it has the sensory equipment to analyze those things. He doesn't know, he doesn't have enough information; his foundation of data is both too slim and too mired with superfluous stimuli. He cannot be reasonable, isn't capable of the distance required to formulate and consider any kind of logical theory, not with the warm weight of its body pressing down on his dick with a kind of gentle, rippling friction.

He shifts, murmurs, "Pet, c'mon," but he doesn't even sound convincing to himself. He sounds throaty and needful, and it would be stupid to deny that this is part of it, this helplessness, and Elijah is many things, he freely admits, but he is not a person that often lies to himself. He's too methodical, too rational for that, even now, even with Pet winding thick limbs around his knees and tugging his legs open, sending a fierce spike of desperate lust through his lower belly.

Part of it is the pull and tug on his limbs, the manipulation, and part of it is just what it is, what _It_ is -- and that's the part he understands the least -- and part of it, yes, is the thrill of not knowing, not understanding it, not knowing what it might choose to do, and not having the option of retreating. He isn't brave, but it's not exactly the same things as being brave.

He thinks about resisting, objecting again, at least long enough to get to the fucking bathroom, but there is something now, a gentle tug around his nuts, the barely-there press of firm warmth at his ass, and when it comes down to it, he won't risk it. He doesn't think it would ruin everything -- it needs to eat, right? -- but he just, God, he just wants it, and he can't quite bring himself to stop it when it is _there_, the quivering possibility of actual _penetration_.

"Please," he whispers, and the arch of his back is totally beyond his control. _Viggo,_ he thinks, but his mind shies away from that, the man and the idea of the man (close, in the kitchen, watching him, perhaps), and Elijah lets it. He closes his eyes and lets his brain -- so seldom quiet, so rarely willing to let go -- just take in this, just the heat and feel of Pet, and the tension in his limbs drains away as well.

He feels a tickle against his lower lip, a soft brush of silky skin, like a reward; he opens his mouth without a qualm, lets the now almost familiar press of warm flesh into his mouth send prickles of sharp-edged need skittering down his back, twisting the urgent heat in his belly tighter. He tastes smoky spice, and he thinks he's tasting Viggo (he shudders, his hips twist up, and Pet slides a couple of limbs around his waist and pulls its body tight up against Elijah's belly, and his dick throbs and aches), the peppery flavor, rife with musk; he thinks it's what Pet tastes like when it feeds from Viggo, and he wants, fuck, he wants to know what it tastes like when it feeds from _him_. He curls his tongue around the tentacle filling his mouth, lets himself suck, and Pet chirrups and it doesn't really matter whether or not it's responding to him; Elijah moans and feels sweat and heat shiver across his skin.

He's half-aware of the shift of Pet's limbs and the resultant shift of his own; his arms go up, a pleasantly taut stretch of skin and muscle, and the tentacles around his knees press into the backs as it lifts his legs. He can feel the brush of sheets beneath his bare feet, but there's no feel of weight. They are not quite dangling in Pet's grip, thighs open and wanton. He can feel cool air against his ass, and the warmth is still pressed against his hole, present but motionless. He shifts his legs up further on his own initiative (a blatant invitation), and a pair of thick tentacles slide beneath them to support their weight. The tip of one of them slides beneath the bulk of Pet's body and strokes along the length of Elijah's dick before sliding beneath and then around, an unspeakably delicious noose. He hears himself make some kind of noise he cannot categorize or quantify, and Pet croons so softly that it's almost a hum.

Elijah can feel his jaw working, the lift and press of his tongue and the bulk of words in his throat that he can't release. In lieu of words, he arches his back, pushes his hips up, and dozens of touches ghost along his thighs, his ribs, the sides of his face. He whines at the ache in his groin, and the noose around his dick tightens at the same time that the gentle limb twisted around his nuts tugs gently; he convulses at the drowning bliss of it, and it curls itself tighter around him, supporting and imprisoning at once, and the pressure at his asshole increases just slightly, just enough to notice it. He wants to snarl something, a demand, perhaps, but there's too much of it in his mouth and on his skin, but it's empathetic or maybe just compassionate, or maybe, maybe Elijah _tastes_ ready to it, and he feels the breach of his body -- there is no pain, and he thinks wildly that the shape of it is conducive to such a careful entry, the gradual widening is ideal -- and he lets out a wailing cry that is eerily clear in spite of his full mouth.

The rush of orgasm swells and surges in his balls and lower belly, and it isn't a thing he has the power to resist; Pet however, is quick and ruthless. The constriction around his nuts is briefly pain, and there is a thick line of pressure around the base of his dick and well. Elijah shudders and twists, the denial a kind of agony, and the sounds he can hear himself making are short and harsh and urgent.

_Why, why, why?_ he thinks, his eyes prickling frustration, because it has to eat, it has to _feed_, and Elijah is willing, but this is the second time it has stopped him, the second time, and he doesn't understand.

Pet croons, but it fails to calm Elijah this time, and he bites at the tentacle in his mouth (but no, not hard enough to break it's glorious skin, he can't, he would _never_) just hard enough to communicate his need and frustration. In response it presses further into his mouth and further into his ass, and Elijah's back comes up off the bed with a muffled shout that degenerates quickly into a frantic moan.

He feels, Christ, so warm and there is an impossible fullness, there is the tickle of more of them, more limbs pressing and stroking and pushing, and there is a little pain this time, there is resistance and stretch, but the resulting burst of unbearable pleasure when it moves in him washes away the pain in an instant, and he forgets it, he tenses and screams silently, not breathing or moaning, nothing but sensation, so bright, excruciating, impossible to bear, and he can hear Pet crooning, can feel it in its skin around his skin, he can feel it everywhere, and he comes apart under it, unstoppable this time, he is consumed by it, surrounded and overwhelmed and captivated, and that is what he _wants_.

He feels weightless, and it wracks him in spasms, not just one rush, but a series of desperate ascensions that he has no control over, and when sound comes back to him sometime during, it's still only the faintest of whimpers. He barely feels the warmth of his come on his belly before Pet does away with it, but he is intensely aware of how his body contracts and clenches, how his ass tightens around what is undeniably more than one of Pet's limbs, and of how they move within him, how they slide against each other inside him, and how that sends his mind teetering outside of reason, his dick twitching and his balls helplessly throbbing, spent, but willing to try anyway.

There are long seconds of aftershocks, jolts of pleasure that feel almost like they're being pulled from him like liquid through a straw, and he can feel himself trembling, feel his limbs wanting to curl up and in, toward his body, wanting to curl around himself in the aftermath. The tentacles around his arms and legs loosen, though they don't abandon him altogether, and when Elijah shifts, they shift too, curl gently around him, a loose cocoon of warmth. The withdrawal from his mouth is so gradual that he nearly doesn't notice it until it's done, and the light pressure around his throat falls away at the same time. He feels slender limbs tickling along the back of his neck and in his hair, and he shivers.

The withdrawal from his ass is just as gradual, but he's aware of it from the moment it starts, aware of his dick twitching exhaustedly at the feel, aware of the way it makes the big muscles in his thighs shudder restlessly until it's done, and aware that there is a kind of dull ache, but his bruised knees actually hurt worse.

Pet squirms and wriggles around him, but it's oddly restful, comforting, and Elijah is so tired. He drifts -- he's not sure how long -- on the edge of sleep, and might have conceivably tumbled right over if not for the slow, emerging realization that Pet is slipping away from him. He wakes abruptly, one of those falling moments, except he falls upright, jerks into a sitting position unreasonably panicked, one hand out and grasping for Pet, the other fumbling across the mattress until he locates his glasses.

He sees Viggo (a vaguely Viggo-shaped blur, at least, until he jams his glasses on his face), disheveled and flushed, with damp tendrils of hair hanging down in front of his eyes.

And Viggo sees Elijah seeing him; he doesn't react, doesn't even twitch, but something that is neither movement nor expression, something Elijah can't define, makes him sure that Viggo _does_ react, that he flinches in some subtle fashion.

And Pet is swarming up Viggo's legs, a quick broil of motion, and it doesn't have to undo Viggo's jeans, Elijah sees, because they are already open, fly sagging to reveal hair that's a good deal darker than the hair on his head. Viggo's hands are open and hanging at his sides, and he doesn't make any kind of move to stop Pet as it presses the central mass of its body to Viggo's belly, as it uses several of its thickest tentacles to shove his jeans down his thighs.

On Viggo, it is all bronze on bronze, earth-tones coiled around more of the same, not indistinguishable -- Pet is still iridescent and patterned -- but complimentary, and Elijah's mouth is abruptly, painfully dry. His gaze skitters nervously up to Viggo's face, and he intends it to be just a second, just checking to be sure Viggo isn't looking at _him_, but his gaze snags on Viggo's pale eyes, caught, because Viggo is. Viggo is looking at him.

Elijah's mouth drops open, but he really has nothing to say. Nothing he knows how to say, even as his face burns hot.

Viggo's left hand is suddenly in motion, startling the shit out of Elijah, swinging up from his side to slap loudly against the wall, and it takes Elijah a minute to figure out that it's for support and balance, because Pet has pressed Viggo's thighs apart far enough that Viggo needs bracing. But he's still looking at Elijah.

Elijah can't see what Pet is doing, everything from the middle of Viggo's chest to his knees is pretty much clothed in tentacles, but he can see the muscle jumping in Viggo's jaw and the slight flutter of his dark lashes as his lids droop, and Pet is crooning continuously, a gluttonous rhapsody that shoots straight to Elijah's groin, brings sweat back to his face and the back of his neck.

He is absolutely mortified at his own voyeurism, but he can't make himself stop, his eyes flickering between Pet and Viggo's face. Viggo's flush goes dark and dusky, and he licks his lips, his breath hissing between them, and Elijah shifts and folds his knees up to his chest to conceal his renewing erection, but he doesn't, _can't_ look away. Pet has tentacles in Viggo's hair, around his neck, winding up both of his arms (though not, Elijah sees, in Viggo's mouth), and they look like lovers, something Elijah finds both blindingly erotic and quasi-painful. Viggo's chin tips up, and his Adam's apple bobs, but he doesn't make a sound as he shudders, though his knuckles go as white as the paint on the wall. His eyes fall mostly closed, though Elijah can still see the vague glitter of them through the lashes.

Elijah sits very still and silent, staring hard at Viggo's feet, until Viggo's hand slides down the wall with a sound that makes goose bumps prickle across Elijah's arms.

If he wasn't so horrified at the idea of meeting Viggo's eyes, he might have missed the tiny flick of Viggo's fingers. Pet uncurls from around him a bare second later, going loose so that it merely slides down Viggo's legs into a puddle on the floor, before pulling itself up onto the bed to settle itself on Elijah -- his legs fold Indian style almost before he realizes he's doing it, giving Pet a place to curl its body -- and by the time he looks up again, Viggo has disappeared into the kitchen.

"Dinner in five," Viggo's voice murmurs, calm and unruffled, and Elijah wraps both arms around Pet and stumbles off the bed and back to the shower.


End file.
